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THE 

OCCASIONAL ADDRESS 

ITS COMPOSITION AND 
LITERATURE 



By 

LORENZO'SEARS, L.H.D. 

Professor in Brown University. Author of " The History of 
Oratory from the Age of Pericles to the Present Time" 



4$ 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
NEW YORK & LONDON 

THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS 
1897 



TT 






1 <b* 



Copyright, 1897 



G P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 



Ube ftntcftetbocftet press, View H?©tfe 



To 

My Classmate 

HON. SIMEON E. BALDWIN, LL.D. 

Professor of Constitutional and Mercantile Law 

in 

Yale University 



PREFACE. 

THE design of the following chapters is to 
present the main requirements for the 
production of the Occasional Address. A con- 
sideration of its principal elements of structure 
is followed by an examination of the forms which 
it has assumed, thus making possible both the 
synthetic and the analytic treatment of the 
subject. In preparing the work I have borne 
in mind chiefly the needs of students who may 
be interested in the basis and structure of 
oratorical composition. Still, I believe that 
serviceable suggestions may be found by pro- 
fessional speakers for the extra-professional 
tasks which they are often asked to perform. 
Some assistance also may be afforded to a con- 
siderable number in every vocation, who are 
from time to time called upon to give effective 
presentation of their thoughts in public speech. 



vi Preface 

Occasions for addresses of various kinds are 
constantly recurring under the present condi- 
tions of American life. The ordinary re- 
sponsibilities of citizenship impose the frequent 
necessity of recalling and interpreting lessons 
taught by memorable events and illustrious 
lives, and of impressing upon the public seri- 
ous views and recommendations concerning 
matters of pending policy. Opportunities are 
also frequently offered to contribute to the en- 
tertainment of the hour by a few gracefully 
spoken words. 

Such occasions in the past have evoked a 
literature corresponding to their diversified 
character. Reference has been made to the 
greater part of this literature in the hope that 
it will be found full of suggestion to those who 
may be called upon to meet the demands of 
similar occasions in the future. 

L. S. 
, Brown University, 
February , J8g"j % 



CONTENTS. 
PART I. 

ELEMENTS OF STRUCTURE. 
Chapter I. — Introductory. 

PAGES 

Definition — A feature of our national life — Its value — 
Comparison with other oratorical forms — The ad- 
dress of educated leaders — Necessity of cultivating 
this form — Qualities of demonstrative oratory — Its 
abundant literature — Divisions and qualities of oc- 
casional discourse — Treatment of subject outlined . 3-13 

Chapter II. — The Object of Discourse. 

Speaker's object always to be clear to himself — Purpose 
in different kinds of discourse — Examples — Purpose 
measured by ability — Estimate of aptitude — Dangers 
of an overestimate — Advocate to be equal to his 
cause ........ 14-26 

Chapter III. — The Subject. 

Choice of subject — Statement of subject — Derivation of 
the theme — Advantage of division — Comprehensive 
brevity in statement — Expression of leading thought 
— Reservation of theme 27-43 



viii Contents 

Chapter IV. — The Plan. 

PAGES 

Value of a plan — Direction of thought — Ordering of 
material — Principles of arrangement — Three divi- 
sions of discourse — Plan prevents digression — Secures 
proportion — Afterthoughts — The skilled writer's 
Plan 44-57 

Chapter V. — The Introduction. 

Provisional introduction — Elements of the final intro- 
duction — Conciliation — Antagonism of prejudice 
and ignorance — Examples of conciliatory introduc- 
tions — Indifference and its removal — Establishing 
importance of subject — The occasion often lends 
importance — Justification of the speech in introduc- 
tion — Full statement of subject — Examples . 58-76 

Chapter VI. — The Discussion. 

Discussion in different kinds of discourse — Ancient clas- 
sification of oratory — Modern classification — Recent 
classification — Scope of demonstrative oratory — 
Its theme immaterial and personal — Ethical and 
political subjects — Range of its topics — Its methods 
expository — The orator a discoverer — Invention — 
Among the ancients : in composition — New com- 
bination demanded — Exposition by representation 
— Examples of character-portrayal — Words as 
media 77-100 

Chapter VII. — The Conclusion of an 
Address. 

Importance of the peroration — An epitome of the dis- 
course — Recapitulation — Cumulative massing — 
Brevity, and stopping at the end . . . 101-108 



Contents ix 

PART II. 

QUALITIES OF EXPRESSION. 
Chapter I. — Cardinal Processes. 

PAGES 

Descriptive, narrative, and expository treatment — Ap- 
propriate argumentative forms — Examples and 
historical parallels — Limitations in their use — The 
simpler logical forms — Conviction in order to per- 
suasion — Motives, low and high — The collective 
conscience — Persuasion ending in action . 109-120 

Chapter II. — Perspicuity. 

Arrangement of thought and its expression — Preliminary 
and elementary training — Correct pronunciation — 
Necessity of clearness — Perspicuity and precision — 
Clear thought helps clear expression — Concentration 
of mind — Perspicuous diction — Anglo-Saxon and 
Romance derivatives — Popular criticism — Breadth 
and strength of phrase — Figures for clearness — The 
comparative faculty — The illustrating term — Culti- 
vation of comparison — Dangers besetting it — Illus- 
tration of the first use of figures . . . 121-141 

Chapter III. — Energy. 

Force added to perspicuity — Pervasive energy — Em- 
phasis — Personal force — Strong words — Plain speech 
— Romance words — Specific terms — Figures for 
emphasis — Climax — Reserves of power — Modera- 
tion in statement ...... 142-158 

Chapter IV. — Elegance. 

Relative value of elegance — Elevation of tone in dis- 
course — Appropriate diction — Euphonious arrange- 
ment of words — Imagery for beauty — Fitness in 
thought 159-105 



x Contents 

Chapter V. — Adaptation. 

PAGES 

Adaptation a far-reaching principle — Congruity of style 
and subject — Incongruities apparent to audience — 
Unsuitableness of subject — Correspondence of dic- 
tion and theme — Simplicity of style — The dramatic 
element — Naturalness and imitation — Personality 
the condition of success — Natural oratory — Liberal 
studies . 166-184 

Chapter VI. — Personal and Ethical 
Qualities. 

Nature and art in composition — General qualities — 
Variety and breadth of treatment — Breadth does 
not imply inaccuracy — Distinctness of division — 
The elucidating power — The finding power — Cour- 
age of convictions — Personal power — The ethical 
quality 1 85-204 

PART III. 

FORMS OF OCCASIONAL ADDRESS. 

Chapter I. — The Eulogy. 

A primeval form of address — Hebrew, Greek, and Ro- 
man panegyric — Panegyrists of imperialism — In feu- 
dal ages — In the reign of Louis XIV. — The eloges of 
the Academy —Character the subject of eulogy — 
British eulogy — Eulogy in America — Clerical me- 
morials — Eulogies upon magistrates — The eulogy as 
literature — Everett's eulogy upon Washington — 
Analysis of the oration — Other eulogists — Perma- 
nence of the eulogy — Principles of its construction — 
Treatment of defects in character . . . 205-244 



Contents xi 

Chapter II. — The Commemorative 
Address. 

PAG&S 

Events and persons commemorated — Beginnings of com- 
memorative literature — Historical survey of this 
literature — Commemoration of events — Interpreta- 
tion and reminiscence — Early examples. Hebrew 
— In other nations — Greek — Roman — Mediaeval 
— In France and England — In America — Web- 
ster's commemorative orations — Everett's frequent 
addresses 245-273 

Chapter III. — The Expository 
Address. 

Exposition and interpretation — Edward Everett — Rufus 
Choate — The popular lecture and lecturers — Charles 
Sumner — Robert C. Winthrop — Wendell Phillips — 
Ralph Waldo Emerson — George William Curtis 274-284 

Chapter IV. — The Commencement 
Oration. 

Its literature abundant — Its probable permanence — Its 
representative character — Subject should be interest- 
ing — Treatment of theme — Making points — Conden- 
sation and compression — Technical terms to be 
avoided — Epigramatic style unsatisfactory — Advan- 
tages of the thesis — Delivery — Methods of composi- 
tion outlined 285-301 

Chapter V. — The Political Speech. 

Students in a political campaign — Political knowledge of 
the people — Value of contact with popular criticism 
— Fairness in discussion — Making most of diversions 
— Support of speaker's own cause — Clearness and 



xii Contents 

PAGES 

strength of diction — Spontaneity — Meeting emer- 
gencies — The Political Convention — The literature 
of campaign oratory — Speeches for the constituency 
— The campaign of 1896 .... 301-318 

Chapter VI. — After-Dinner Remarks. 

Antiquity of the custom — The occasion furnishing ma- 
terial — Revision and forethought — Preparation and 
gleaning — Weighty subjects in lighter vein — Enter- 
tainment essential — Brevity desirable — Requisites of 
preparation — The literature of after-dinner speech — 
Value of such opportunities . 319-332 

Index . 333 




" Do you think that you could speak yourself if there were 
a necessity, and if the council were to choose you ? 

"And what would you be able to say if you had to speak ? " 
The Menexenus of Plato. 

(Jowett's version.) 



PART I. 

ELEMENTS OF STRUCTURE. 



I. 
INTRODUCTORY. 

THE comprehensive term, Occasional Ad- 
dress, is here employed to designate those 
forms of public speech which are called forth 

by occurrences of unusual import- 
Definition, 
ance. It is a custom in our own 

time and nation, as it has been in other nations 
and times, to interpret in this manner the 
meaning of events, to recall the teaching of 
turning-points in history, to commemorate 
worthy lives, and to enforce the lessons exem- 
plified in noble characters. As a custom, it has 
its reason and justification, partly in the remi- 
niscent disposition common to all people, and 
also in the willingness and desire to be guided 
in the larger affairs of personal and national life 
by the wisdom which is distilled from the ex- 
perience of the past. Thus the occasional ad- 
3 



4 The Occasional Address 

dress has grown to be a feature in the life and 
literature of all cultivated nations. 

In our own nation in particular it has be- 
come prominent, owing to a strong inclination 
to celebrate anniversary days and, as 

A feature of 

our national a republic, to keep in constant re- 
membrance the lessons of political 
wisdom left by its founders. The better senti- 
ment of the people is, that the continuance of 
our institutions depends upon an educated pub- 
lic understanding and conscience. Among the 
instrumentalities for accomplishing this, — such 
as the establishing of societies of a commemo- 
rative character, and the increasing study of 
our history, and the preservation of memorials, 
— must be reckoned the occasional address in 
one or more of its forms. Indeed, it usually 
accompanies the above-mentioned retrospect- 
ive acts ; for the foundation or mere continu- 
ance of any organization or ceremony avails 
little unless occasionally explained and illus- 
trated. The spoken word of comment, in- 
struction, and appeal must pass between the 
event and the common intelligence or its best 
significance and its power are ultimately lost. 



Introductory 5 

Interpreted rightly, the event, life, or character 
obtains a widely radiating influence, a renown 
commensurate with its exposition, and a useful- 
ness as varied as the diversified views of differ- 
ent interpreters. 

The value of such occasional address may 
best be estimated by recalling some example 
of it. One need go no farther back 

Its value. 

than the centennial of Washington's 
inauguration as President of the United States. 
The years since have been prolific in such dis- 
course. Every intelligent citizen will remem- 
ber what some instance of it has been to him 
when he has had set before him higher ideals 
of citizenship or nobler standards of character 
than those presented in the ordinary round of 
daily living. Perchance, the historic spirit may 
have been stirred and the historic imagination 
fired — no inferior elements in the education of 
a man who has other interests than those of 
finance. Possibly the theme may have been 
merely literary, scientific, or social in charac- 
ter ; the departments of taste, knowledge, and 
good fellowship occupy too large a portion of 
what is called life to permit the neglect of any 



6 The Occasional Address 

method of cultivation so effective as the pop- 
ular lecture in its earlier or later forms. 

It may be said that the teachings above men- 
tioned can be had from other sources; those of 
compared justice, for example, in the courts, 
with other of th hi her litics in legislative 

oratorical ox o 

forms. assemblies, and of morals and religion 

in the pulpit. But these specialties are each 
subject to qualifications as methods of in- 
struction, and their limitations are so obvious 
as to be an answer to the suggestion to sub- 
stitute them for the public address as pop- 
ular educators. Such instruction is in definite 
lines, often technical, or restricted to narrow 
bounds by necessity, taste, habit, and class 
association. Topics that can be discussed be- 
fore a representative throng of the people are 
out of place in any and all the departments of 
instruction just enumerated. Both the audi- 
ence and the address are more general in char- 
acter. The one will have a wider scope, and 
the other will be composed of more hetero- 
geneous materials. On the other hand, the 
hearers expect to be instructed in matters of 
superior interest and importance, or to have 



Introductory 7 

inspiring examples set before them, their best 
motives appealed to, and to hear all in a dig- 
nified and elevated tone of discourse. 

For this they naturally look to their leaders 
— men of intelligence, wisdom, and effective 
speech. As a rule, these are men of 

1 The address 

education and cultivation. Usually of educated 

leaders. 

they belong to the constantly widen- 
ing circle of the learned professions. As these 
are becoming more learned and more technical 
with the growth of specialism, the chances for 
the best occasional oratory are growing less. 
The qualities which make men eminent at the 
bar, in the legislature, in the pulpit, the editor- 
ial office, the academic lecture-room, must con- 
verge at one point where each man shall be a 
recognized authority according to his eminence. 
He may be an occasional orator, but the occa- 
sions will be as rare as the demand is infrequent 
for what he can say best. 

Accordingly there is the greater demand upon 
professional and educated men to 

Necessity of 

cultivate those faculties which will cultivating 

, r , • i this form. 

be of service in extra-professional 

address, and to make excursions into those 



8 The Occasional Address 

fields of knowledge which lie outside their nar- 
rowing vocations. For in this territory the 
great multitude of men live and move, with 
their interests and hopes and fears, their ignor- 
ance and their shrewd sense, their fickleness 
and their power, their prejudices and their 
openness to conviction and persuasion. To 
nothing are they more obedient than to the 
skilled speaker who knows whereof he speaks. 
As intelligence increases and becomes the con- 
dition of privilege and power, and even of lib- 
erty, the people will come in greater numbers 
to hear what the man will say whose knowledge 
and virtue give him the right to address them. 
They will listen and pay him their best tribute 
in adopting his opinions, and possibly in re- 
peating them as their own on the first oppor- 
tunity. They may not understand all that he 
says ; they may recall still less after his speech 
is ended, but they have received information, 
impressions, and impulses through the words 
spoken, and, what is often of equal value, 
through the speaker's personality and character, 
evident to the discerning spirit in every audi- 
ence. 



Introductory 9 

Nothing is better adapted to give a speaker 
the power needed to inform and direct multi- 
tudes, than a study of the occasional 

Qualities of 

address both in its structure and as demonstrat- 

ive oratory. 

a literary form. In the first respect, 
it has much in common with other kinds of 
oratory, as the judicial, the deliberative, and the 
homiletic. Still, this fourth form, the demon- 
strative, emphasizes certain methods which give 
it distinction from the others. Above all it is 
what the Greeks called " epidictic " — showing 
forth — and the Romans, " demonstrative," not 
in the sense of demonstration by logical pro- 
cesses so much as by expository setting forth 
and pointing out, as of a thing in itself plain 
when attention has been directed to it. If this 
demonstration or exhibition and display of 
truth is made for the purpose of securing a 
definite act on the part of those addressed, the 
discourse becomes " determinative," as direct- 
ing to a certain end. The same term applies 
to that address which is intended to result in a 
change of opinion, belief, or action. In such 
discourse there is need of clear perception and 
the power to make evident to others what is 



io The Occasional Address 

seen by the speaker. In technical phrase, the 
speaker should have the qualities of perspicac- 
ity and perspicuity ; be keen of sight, and 
plain in speech. So only will he be both a dis- 
coverer and a revealer. He will also need in 
their place and time other subordinate qualities 
which are commonly set down in works upon 
composition, and cannot safely be omitted in 
any treatment of methods in the expression of 
thought. But the widest exposition of effective 
processes and qualities in occasional oratory is 
found in its literature, which is abundant and 
diversified. 

Every nation and century have contributed 
to it according to their character, taste, and 
its abundant ability. The Greek gave it a nobly 
literature. reminiscent and commemorative 
tone, the Roman a panegyric accent ; the medi- 
aeval ecclesiastic emphasized the spirit of rever- 
ence ; the French orators breathed into it a 
loyalty to imperialism mingled with an unswerv- 
ing devotion to the King of kings ; the English 
made it a moderate and just estimate of events 
and men ; while Americans, the heirs of all, 
have given it a cosmopolitan character and a 



Introductory 1 1 

free treatment. The entire body of this litera- 
ture in all nations and times is the best of in- 
structors to any who may have to speak in a 
similar strain. Its volume is great, but the 
choicest of it is accessible and sufficient. Full 
of instruction, suggestion, and inspiration in its 
matter, and of dignity and beauty in its form, 
replete with graces of style, the strength of 
clear presentation, and the force of sympathetic 
appeal, it is a type of the most effective com- 
munication, from one man to many, of his per- 
ceptions and opinions, his sentiments and 
emotions. What the masters of such speech 
accomplished in the determinative mode of it, 
belongs to the history of eloquence and of 
civilization itself. Therefore any study of de- 
monstrative oratory should, as far as practica- 
ble, include reference, at least, to its literature. 
Extended quotation in any work of moderate 
compass is impossible, as it is also misleading 
if fragmentary. Only as illustrating separate 
divisions of discourse can the discourse itself 
be divided without marring the effect of its unity 
and completeness. Accordingly, while sources 
of instruction and suggestion have been indi- 



12 The Occasional Address 

cated here, so much only of extract and analysis 
has been made as will lead to the synthesis of 
actual composition. The two processes to- 
gether constitute the method which contributes 
to best success in this important phase of public 
speech. 

Before undertaking an occasional address 
there will, of course, arise questions as to the 
Divisions and orator's reason for speaking at all, 
oc«^ona i f the ob J ect and purpose he has in 
discourse. m i n d, the end he desires to accom- 
plish, and his own warrant for the attempt. 
These interrogatories being answered, matters 
of construction will demand attention, in the 
main divisions of introduction, discussion, and 
conclusion. Qualities which make for effective- 
ness in presenting thoughts and appealing to 
motives cannot be overlooked, nor, above all, 
certain impalpable elements which are gifts 
rather than acquirements, the greatest of which 
is the moral strength and earnestness that un- 
derlie the most effective speech. In demon- 
strative discourse, more than in any other form, 
there is a demand for all these and every other 
resource of oratory, since those who are ad- 



Introductory 13 

dressed belong to every grade in the social 
scale, and hold opinions, sentiments, and beliefs 
of endless diversity. 

Consequently the study of the occasional 
address as composition is widely inclusive, as 
its literature is almost limitless. The 

Treatment of 

following chapters attempt to apply subject out- 
familiar principles and methods to 
this single branch of discourse, and also to point 
out its achievements in several directions, rang- 
ing from sober commemoration to the lighter 
speech of social festivities. If, in consequence 
of this attempt, it shall be easier to keep the 
occasional address up to the high levels which 
it has reached in our own and in former times, 
the purpose of this discussion of its composi- 
tion and its literature will be accomplished. 




II. 



THE OBJECT OF DISCOURSE. 



IT has been observed that the literature of 
the Anglo-Saxon race has for one of its 
fundamental characteristics a definite purpose, 
which in turn becomes the reason of its exist- 
object in ence and the warrant of its perpe- 
spea mg. tuity. In some forms of composition 
this element of purpose will necessarily not be 
avowed, although even in a novel it is not 
needful to assent to a recent critical dictum 
that " a story with a purpose is a violation of 
the author's unwritten contract with his read- 
ers." The announcement of the writer's pur- 
pose is, however, by no means essential. On 
the contrary, such proclamation of the speak- 
er's design may be the most direct and speedy 
means of frustrating it, as the premature publi- 
cation of a warrant for arrest puts the offender 
14 



The Object of Discourse 15 

on guard and hastens his escape. So far as the 
audience is concerned, the purpose of a dis- 
course is sometimes subject to the same law 
that prevails in the novel or the play, where 
it would be fatal to the reader's prolonged at- 
tention to state, as in the ancient prologue, the 
purpose of the story or the drama. But in the 
degree that the speaker is at variance with his 
hearers, it will be politic to keep his intention 
to himself. The last thing they will wish to 
hear is, that he purposes to change their way of 
thinking, and bring them around to a contrary 
opinion. Consistency is a jewel which every 
man thinks he possesses, and with which he 
never parts. Accordingly the skilled orator 
does not publicly propose to change the opin- 
ions of his audience. In proportion as he really 
desires to accomplish this he will avoid pro- 
claiming his design. 

In just this proportion also, on the other 
hand, will his object in speaking be clear and 
definite to himself. This purpose must be the 
first and clearest thought that he Purpose clear 
has. It is not to be denied that to himseIf ' 
there are felicitous speakers to whom sympa- 



1 6 The Occasional Address 

thetic assemblies listen with pleasure when 
there is nothing of great consequence to hear; 
but the manner in which the little or nothing is 
said gives pleasure for the time, and in this way 
becomes the purpose of the hour to the spokes- 
man. At such a time a serious purpose might be 
as much out of place as a sermon at a marriage 
feast. Yet the purpose of the speech in lighter 
vein may be just as definite and just as appo- 
site as when graver issues are discussed with 
the definite aim to win opposing minds to the 
speaker's own. When, however, serious matters 
press upon the orator, he will realize the strong 
necessity of having the purpose of his discourse 
clearly and definitely in mind. For the very 
nature of persuasive speech implies an object 
and end for which it is uttered. Not mainly to 
instruct, like the essay or the lecture, nor chiefly 
to please, like the story, the poem, and the 
play ; but being designed to move the senti- 
ments toward a higher plane, or the wills of 
the hearers to determinate action, the end to 
which such speech is directed must be the 
plainest, clearest, and earliest thought in the 
writer's mind. Otherwise his effort will be 






The Object of Discourse 17 

divided, vague, and uncertain, with correspond- 
ing results. In nothing is singleness of aim 
more essential to success, or division and indis- 
tinctness more fatal. Incidentally it may be 
remarked here that the objects of speaking may 
in general be reduced to four : to enlighten the 
understanding, to please the imagination, to 
move the passions, and to influence the will. 
Eloquence itself, in the large significance of the 
word, denotes " that art or talent by which dis- 
course is adapted to its purpose." 

The first inquiry, therefore, which the orator 
makes will be, What is the object of my speech ? 
What, indeed, is the reason of my 

Purpose in 

speaking at all ? This question is different kinds 

of discourse. 

pertinent whatever may be the na- 
ture of the discourse. If forensic, the character 
of the case will furnish the answer, whether 
prosecution or defence. If deliberative, the 
measure to be advocated. If political, the end 
to be gained. If commemorative, the lesson 
to be inculcated. If inaugural, inceptive, or 
anticipatory, the promise, the hope, and the 
expectation will furnish the speaker with a pur- 
pose to lead his hearers up to the efforts they 



1 8 The Occasional Address 

are to make to meet incident obligations. A 
lecture has its instruction to be conveyed, and 
a sermon both instruction and persuasion. 

The literature of eloquence affords many ex- 
amples of such inquiry, which must have been 
made by orators before their speeches 

Examples. 

were begun, or even planned. io 
cite an instance which will be recalled by every 
reader of such literature: In the Bunker Hill 
oration by Daniel Webster, at the laying of the 
corner-stone of the monument, his preconceived 
purpose was plainly to show the results of the 
Revolutionary war upon civilization, and to 
urge the people to perpetuate the existing con- 
dition of prosperity. Charles Summer's object 
in his oration on " Fame and Glory," delivered 
before the literary societies of Amherst College 
in August, 1847, was to establish a higher ideal 
in the moral life, to emphasize the brotherhood 
of mankind, and to bring human lives into 
harmony with the divine will. The object of 
Wendell Phillips's " Phi Beta Kappa" oration at 
Harvard, June 30, 1881, was to show that man 
with a college education may educate and ele- 
vate the masses. The purpose of William H. 



The Object of Discourse 19 

Seward's speech on "The Irrepressible Conflict/' 
1858, was to encourage the people of the United 
States in reclaiming ground which had been 
surrendered to the interests of the South. 
Robert Toombs, of Georgia, had in mind a 
purpose to impress the North with the conse- 
quences of inconsistency to its former doctrine 
of loyalty to the decisions of the Supreme 
Court, and to show that secession and an ap- 
peal to arms would follow. Jefferson Davis in 
his inaugural address tried to brace the energies 
of the Confederacy to the responsibility of con- 
ducting its own affairs, and to securing the 
perpetuity of the separated government. Carl 
Schurz in 1864 had, as the end and aim of his 
Milwaukee speech, the fortifying of the war 
sentiment and further sacrifice for the cause of 
Union and Liberty. To emphasize the doctrine 
that Congress should guarantee republican 
government in the Southern States after the 
war, was the purpose of Henry Winter Davis's 
speech in March, 1864, and Geo. H. Pendle- 
ton's reply was for the purpose of recalling the 
old doctrine of the rights of States. In all 
these instances, if one were asked what was the 



20 The Occasional Address 

chief thought of each speaker at the outset, the 
answer would be, "His purpose." An end is 
to be secured. A certain man desires to ac- 
complish it, and determines to make the 
attempt. This thought is prior to any definite 
vision of the precise method by which the 
object is to be gained. The particular line of 
address is a later decision. To make a speech 
will certainly not be the first impulse with a 
man in earnest ; at least not for the sake of 
speaking. Only as a means to an end will he 
make a public address ; unless he delights in 
the inebriety which it sometimes produces — 
especially in extemporaneous effusions — but 
with corresponding reactions and disgust on 
the following day, or even earlier. Accordingly, 
every speaker who is likely to be heard with 
interest will have a purpose, or find one, as the 
justification of his appearing before an audience 
with a demand upon its time and attention. 
The age is too busy, and the aggregated hours 
surrendered by listeners are too many to admit 
of waste on purposeless talk by which time is 
lost and energies dissipated. 

In considering the object and purpose of 



The Object of Discourse 21 

speaking, the same exercise of judgment is re- 
quired as in all the serious affairs of 

Purpose 

life. Nowhere is the need greater measured by 
than here, that the speaker rightly 
estimate his ability to accomplish his ends and 
satisfy a laudable ambition. In general it may 
be affirmed, that an overmastering purpose will 
give earnestness and sincerity to utterance, but 
unfortunately these qualities, essential as they 
are to eloquence, are by no means the whole of 
it. Many a person who has been stirred by a 
clear vision of the worthiness of some form of 
beneficence, or by an oppressive sense of a long- 
standing wrong, has also felt his powerlessness 
to " cry aloud and spare not/' The incubus of 
compelled silence is upon him. He cannot 
find his voice. Not all, however, are thus 
choked by an overwhelming sense of inequality 
to the occasion and the demand. As a conse- 
quence, many causes have been espoused, and 
many enterprises undertaken, by zealous but 
miscalculating champions. This is exemplified 
in every reform movement. There were many, 
for instance, who were eager to abolish the 
slave-trade in England and in this country, but 



22 The Occasional Address 

only two or three who were able to be leaders 
in such a stupendous undertaking. Opportuni- 
ties for a crusade against permitted wrongs are 
never wanting, nor is the perception of them 
long absent from keen sensibilities in every 
community and age ; but the able are always 
fewer than the devoted and the valiant. 

It therefore becomes a part of the difficulty 
and the labor which beset a speaker at the 
Estimate of outset to estimate with exactness his 
aptitude. aptitude to achieve a desired end. 
He will ask : " Am I equal to the enterprise I 
have in mind ? Can I reasonably expect to ac- 
complish it? Is my desire a warrant of my 
success? Can I command the forces requisite 
to stem opposition, and turn it to my advan- 
tage ? " Such questions are not so rare or idle 
as they may seem. Out in the strife of opin- 
ions, parties, and factions they are constantly 
presenting themselves to the men who are 
guiding public sentiment and enlisting forces. 
Their success depends largely upon the discreet 
answers they make to the above self-question- 
ings. Therefore, one lesson to be learned is 
how to make a wise estimate of what can 



The Object of Discourse 23 

safely be undertaken as the object of persuas- 
ive speech, in order that the purpose to be 
accomplished be not beyond the ability of him 
who ardently desires its attainment. 

How is this to be ascertained ? Sometimes 
by nothing less than the actual trial, in which 
the speaker may surprise himself and develop 
unexpected resources. Usually, however, he 
will need some previous encouragement or dis- 
suasion. Then reference to past achievements 
may be helpful. Has a similar task been per- 
formed with satisfaction ? Would a friend of 
similar capacity be likely to undertake it or 
carry it to a successful conclusion ? Has it 
been taken up before, and by what sort of 
advocates, and with what result ? Such in- 
quiries will clarify doubts and settle uncertain- 
ties. At least they will be likely to indicate 
the safe side and may prevent disaster. Or, 
possibly, they may lead to a reasonable assur- 
ance of success. For example, when Daniel 
Webster undertook to reply to Hayne's attack 
upon him and upon New England, it is certain 
that he had few apprehensions as to his com- 
petency to meet the charges of his opponent. 



24 The Occasional Address 

His entire political education had been fitting 
him for that day's business. He needed but 
a few hours to gather up the studies of years. 
Some colleague of his would have felt called 
upon to take up the gauge of battle if he had 
not been present to answer for himself and 
Massachusetts, but with what inadequacy to 
the occasion and with what disparity in the 
result ! No such misgiving crossed Webster's 
mind as he called for the reading of Foote's 
resolution, and braced himself for a four-hours' 
discussion of the principles of union under the 
Constitution. Neither had Charles Sumner any 
hesitancy as to his ability to discuss the issues 
involved in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, nor had 
Wendell Phillips in any exposition of similar 
themes before incredulous or hostile throngs. 
One and all knew their strength, and were reason- 
ably sure of carrying out their well-formed plans. 
It is easy to record the instances where 
failures have been made, but their frequency 
makes them less remarkable than 

Dangers of 

an overesti- preeminent successes. In general it 

mate. 

may be said, other things being equal, 
that, whenever a speaker has failed, the primary 



The Object of Discourse 25 

cause has been an overestimate of his power to 
accomplish an object which he had in view. 
He undertook too much, with the usual and 
proverbial consequence of not counting the cost, 
and of not measuring his strength. Therefore 
the orator will not waste the time which he 
spends in estimating his ability to cope with 
the obstacles that lie between him and the at- 
tainment of his purpose. He will ask if it is 
within the scope of his ordinary capacity, or at 
most within the outer circle of his exceptional 
and extraordinary achievements. Has he a 
high commission to enter the lists against a 
gigantic wrong or to defend a just cause, whose 
advocacy may need still more valor and discre- 
tion than the arraignment of an unjust one ? 
Will he, in short, do more harm than good by 
a weak support, when a strong championship 
is demanded? 

An affirmative answer does by no means 
compel total silence and entire withdrawal from 
a good cause. There are many ways 

Advocate to 

of giving it support and many de- be equal to 

grees of efficacy in each way ; but to 

render the best service in persuasive speech, 



26 The Occasional Address 

much counsel with one's self, and perhaps with 
others, should be taken, in order to establish 
that conviction which gives the speaker an 
assured sense of power and reasonable certainty 
of success ; for these are often of more weight 
with an audience than what is spoken. Listen- 
ers are not slow to discover that the undertaking 
is greater than the man, that the cause is higher 
and nobler than the advocate. So likewise 
they are quick to suspect for what reasons his 
advocacy has been assumed, whether for the 
advantage it will bring to him, or for the help 
he can bring to it. In any case, the orator who 
hopes to succeed will identify himself with the 
cause he espouses, entirely and without reserve, 
so far as it commends itself to him. Otherwise 
he will abandon it, and devote his energies 
to something into which he can enter with that 
single-heartedness which is the chief condition 
of success. For there are enterprises suited 
to every man's capacity, as there is some one 
topic on which almost any intelligent person 
can speak with confidence in private or in 
public. 



III. 
THE SUBJECT. 

TO choose a subject is often supposed to be 
the first step in composing an address. 
The necessity and the purpose of speaking 
being established, the topic becomes choice of 
the next consideration. " I must subject, 
speak : what shall I speak about ? " This often 
brings with itself more difficulty and perplexity 
than all subsequent questions, for in one sense 
it includes them all. A world of topics is 
known to exist, but in the confusion and the 
obscurity of chaos. Sometimes there are direct- 
ing agencies coming, perhaps, from an instructor 
in college, or from the occasion itself, but at 
the best the opportunity for selection and re- 
jection is large, and much must be left to one's 
own judgment, with the usual chances of mis- 
take and consequent failure. This must be 
27 



28 The Occasional Address 

charged largely to a neglect of the first ques- 
tion, already considered in the foregoing chap- 
ter. If the object of speaking has been clearly 
determined, the choice of a subject will be at- 
tended with far less difficulty than if all crea- 
tion is to be rummaged for something to speak 
about. The purpose being clear, the question 
is limited to the most direct method of accom- 
plishing it. It is simply a matter of the short- 
est road to a given point, or the one most 
likely to secure the largest following. The 
field is narrowed, a hundred other fields are 
excluded, diverging and enticing paths are dis- 
missed from consideration, and the general 
direction determined. There is still-room left 
for variety of treatment, but the course is plain 
and, above all, the end of it is fixed. It is 
with the writer as with the preliminary sur- 
veyor of a railway route from town to town. 
He stands here ; he must go yonder ; whether 
by this mountain and along that stream, or 
through this hill and over that hollow — it 
makes little difference. But no questions of 
another road in another state, nation, or hemi- 
sphere will disturb and distract him.. The 



The Subject 29 

way to take the most people at the least cost 
from one place to another is all that concerns 
him now. And all that concerns the man who 
is to lead others to think as he thinks, to be- 
lieve as he believes, to do as he does, is to 
choose that line of discourse which will bring 
them to the point where he stands. This gen- 
eral direction will be indicated by what is 
called the subject of discourse. In substance 
it includes the entire address, as the acorn in- 
cludes the oak. It is a seed-truth, or propo- 
sition from which all succeeding statements, 
expositions, and illustrations grow as naturally 
as branches, twigs, and leaves spring from the 
trunk of a tree. 

In form it is a clause only, according to pres- 
ent standards of taste Once it was a whole 
title-page ; but the discourse was of statement of 
proportionate length. When the subject, 
sermon was measured by the second or third 
turning of the hour-glass in New England pul- 
pits, how could a single sentence of moderate 
length convey an adequate notion of what that 
discourse contained? Condensation was not a 
Puritan accomplishment. There was too much 



30 The Occasional Address 

time and too large a territory to encourage re- 
trenchment. It was two hundred years before 
cultivation, discipline, and good taste could 
bring the subject of a two-hour oration into 
the compass of a single line or clause. " The 
True Grandeur of Nations " ; " The Character 
of Washington " ; " Disunion " ; " Reconstruc- 
tion " ; " The War"; " Idols " ; " Free Trade " ; 
" The New South," — all these are examples of 
inclusive and comprehensive statement of the 
germ idea in as many addresses. Once, the first 
thought would have been drawn out as follows : 
" New England Persecutors Mauled with their 
own Weapons ; Giving Some Account of the 
bloody laws made at Boston against the King's 
Subjects that dissented from their way of Wor- 
ship. Together with a brief Account of the 
Imprisonment and Tryal of Thomas Maule of 
Salem for publishing a book entitled, Truth 
held forth and maintained, etc. By Theo. Phi- 
lolathes." [T. Maule.] 

" Boanerges, A Short Essay to preserve and 
strengthen the Good Impressions Produced by 
Earthquakes on the Minds of People that have 
been Awakened with them. Addressed unto 



The Subject 31 

the Whole People of New England who have 
been Terrified with the late Earthquakes ; and 
more especially the Towns that have had a 
more singular Share in the Terrors of them." 
By Cotton Mather, Boston, 1727. Once more 
by the same : " Memorable Providences, Relat- 
ing to Witchcrafts and Possessions. A Faithful 
Account of many Wonderful and Surprising 
Things, that have befallen several Bewitched 
and Possessed Persons in New England Par- 
ticularly. A Narrative of the marvellous Trou- 
ble and Releef, Experienced by a pious Family 
in Boston, very lately and sadly molested by 
Evil Spirits." 

Increase, son of the above, justified his name 
by the length of the following title : " A Relation 
of the Troubles which have happened in New 
England, By reason of the Indians there. From 
the Year 1614 to 1675. Wherein the frequent 
Conspiracys of the Indians to cutt off the English 
and the wonderfull providence of God in disap- 
pointing their devices is declared. Together 
with an Historical Discourse concerning the 
Prevalency of Prayer ; shewing that New Eng- 
land's late deliverance from the Rage of the 



32 The Occasional Address 

Heathen is an eminent Answer of Prayer. By 
Increase Mather, Teacher of a Church in Boston 
in New England." 

For other and numerous illustrations of 
early titular expansiveness, the reader is re- 
ferred to Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana, vol- 
ume xi. 

Brevity, however, is not the only quality to 
be sought under all conditions. If, for instance, 
the topic of discourse is to be announced before- 
hand, or to be advertised in any way, there will 
be sought for it an agreeable statement, eu- 
phonic if possible. Publishers of books under- 
stand better than authors themselves the 
value of taking or catching titles. In fiction 
this is truer than elsewhere, and a book with a 
rhythm, or a riddle, or a proverb in the title, 
begins to sell itself, or continues to pass its 
praise from mouth to mouth. " Murder will 
Out " ; " Love in Idleness " ; " Foul Play " ; 
" Hard Cash " ; " What will He Do with It ? " ; 
" Looking Backward " ; " Barriers Burned 
Away " ; " Put Yourself in His Place " ; 
" White Lies " ; " Beside the Bonny Briar 
Bush "; " With Edge Tools " ; " Green Pastures 



The Subject 33 

and Picadilly," — all indicate a taste that has 
prevailed in titles. 

To a certain extent this is true of the word- 
ing of the subject of any discourse, especially, as 
has been remarked, when it is to be announced 
beforehand. Many a preacher or lecturer has 
depended as much upon startling or enigmatical 
topics for an attraction as upon what he was 
considered likely to say. From a single list 
of " Sunday Announcements" the following 
samples of subjects are taken : " Excursion from 
Joppa to Jerusalem " ; " Equal Rights a Delu- 
sion " ; " The Measure of a Man " ; " Is He 
Coming?"; " The Dual Nature of Man" ; 
"Eyes and Ears"; "The Power of Trifles to 
Annoy"; "Afraid to Join Them." The per- 
manent value of such announcements in a con- 
tinued series of discourses is not to be discussed 
here. But that it may be done once with ad- 
vantage shows that there is something in unique- 
ness of presentation, which draws a crowd. 
Continuous attraction will depend more upon 
the speaker than upon his advertisements. 

From these quaint, stilted, and sensational 

statements of the subject of discourse, atten- 
3 



34 The Occasional Address 

tion may be turned to what is of more conse- 
quence to the speaker, namely, the derivation 
Derivation of a definite theme from a general 

of the theme. topiCt Re w j U need tQ do ^ fof 

his own purposes in composition as well as for 
the satisfaction of his hearers, in obtaining a 
clear understanding of what he has to tell them. 
The ordinary process is not beyond the possi- 
bility of tracing. 

Suppose, in illustration, that the occasion be 
academic and anniversary in character. From 
the vast departments of human action and 
knowledge, suggestions may come flocking to 
one who is looking for a subject, and very likely 
the most inappropriate and impracticable will 
be the first to arrive. Rejection, utter and 
absolute, will be the primary process. Con- 
sciously or unconsciously, sooner or later, the 
writer will find himself so dominated by the 
thought of the occasion, that only those topics 
which are in harmony with its spirit will be 
tolerated for an instant. Themes relating to 
education in its narrow or broader meaning will 
at last, if not at first, come to the surface in a 
form as crude as the reflection " I must speak 



The Subject 35 

upon some educational topic." Then follows 
the process which is preliminary to a definite 
statement of the subject of discourse, namely, 
the determination of the theme. On such a 
proceeding much time and thought may be 
profitably expended. In all the wide range 
covered by such a subject-general as " Educa- 
tion " there are a hundred specific topics that 
can be discussed and, as every practised writer 
knows, with greater ease and definiteness than 
the all-including idea of Education in general. 
By some such operation of division and sub- 
division, of rejection and selection, it may be 
imagined that George William Curtis came to 
his well-known theme at Union College, " The 
Public Duty of Educated Men." Education 
might have suggested to him such topics as 
Liberal, Technical, Classical, or Scientific 
Training; for scholars, for business men, for 
officials, for citizens ; for the few, for the many, 
at great cost and at little ; in relation to home 
life and to public affairs. It may have suggested 
a definite or an indefinite conception, relevant 
or irrelevant, but none satisfactory, until out of 
the mass is at length extracted a concrete idea 



36 The Occasional Address 

of Education embodied in men who have been 
educated liberally, coupled with the corporate 
body of citizens called the State. The obliga- 
tions of such persons to the aggregated as- 
semblage of all finally finds form in the brief 
but comprehensive theme, " The Public Duty 
of Educated Men." A similar procedure 
brought out of the vast subject of Litera- 
ture the theme of Edward Everett's first 
venture in the department of demonstrat- 
ive oratory — " Circumstances Favorable to the 
Progress of Literature in America." So, from 
the general subject of Peace, Charles Sumner 
drew the lesson that the " True Grandeur of 
Nations" consists in cultivating and keeping 
the peace rather than in promoting and practis- 
ing the arts of war. Slavery in the United 
States he attacks by a flank movement, when 
he described the horrors of " White Slavery in 
the Barbary States." 

While therefore the general subject, as in 
each of these topics, is briefer in its statement 
Advantage than the derived theme, the latter so 
of division, narrows the idea as to make it easier 
of treatment. Let any one attempt to write 



The Subject 37 

upon Education, Literature, Peace, or Freedom, 
if he wishes to see how elusive and illusive 
such vast subjects are. At first sight they 
appear as grand and fine as a sunset cloud. 
The first plunge into them reveals nothing but 
gathering mist. A few generalities about the 
advantages of Education to the man, and of 
Peace to a nation, are followed by growing 
darkness, confusion, and early discouragement. 
Not until one section of the general subject has 
been separated from the rest, will there be 
much satisfactory progress. 

This law of division is one of the hardest for 
the inexperienced writer to understand. To 
him it seems that the larger and more general 
the subject, the more there should be to say 
about it. A book might be written upon 
Nature, or Art, or Travel, or Genius, or Politics, 
or Labor, or Character: why not an hour's 
discourse ? The reply might be made that it 
would be easier to write the book than the dis- 
course : for in a book the subject would be 
treated section by section, while in the discourse 
there is usually the attempt to swallow it 
whole and to make others do the same. The 



38 The Occasional Address 

writer of either form will have to yield to the 
unbending law of human infirmity in the mat- 
ter of apprehension and assimilation. Partial 
knowledge, discovery of truth step by step, and 
one step at a time, is the rule for the average 
understanding, and audience. The speaker 
will therefore confine himself to one section of a 
subject, or at the extreme to one at a time, for 
his own sake, and for the sake of those to whom 
he is to speak. 

The formal statement of the part of a sub- 
ject being of necessity longer than that of the 
whole, another difficulty arises in 

Comprehens- 
ive brevity making this statement brief enough 

in statement. 

for announcement, and at the same 
time full enough for adequate comprehension 
of the theme. It may not be successfully done 
at the start. Beginning with a statement of 
some length, a clearer and more compact ex- 
pression may be gained when the entire com- 
position is finished. Elements which did not 
appear at the first outlook may have entered 
into the discussion, and some that were first 
to show themselves may be like froth that 
rises to the seething surface to be cast away. 



The Subject 39 

Rather, however, than not to get a clear and 
definite idea of what he is going to attempt, 
the writer had best make the first statement 
of his theme a page in length, if need be, and 
trust to his later treatment to clarify, condense, 
and abbreviate it. An example of a short state- 
ment of a subject that might have been long, 
which in the mind of the orator must at first 
have been longer than its present form, is 
Burke's theme, " To the Electors of Bristol." 
It might have been expanded in the speaker's 
mind as follows : " The representative of a con- 
stituency who is worthy of that constituency 
and his official position, ought to have some 
regard to their opinions ; but only to such as 
are permanent and not shifting, as becomes one 
who is for the people a pillar of the State, and 
not a weather vane to show which way the wind 
of popular whim happens to be blowing at any 
particular hour." The speech is usually known 
as that made previous to the Bristol election, 
but the title might have been : " The Relation 
of the Representative to his Constituency," 
or "The Independence of the Representative." 
In any stated theme the problem will always 



4o The Occasional Address 

be to incorporate the main or trunk idea 
in as few words as will convey its outline 
Expression t the audience. Its main features 

of leading 

thought. will be enough. More than these 
belong to the discourse itself. And if these 
details are stated too fully in the title, so much 
will be taken from the interest of the speech. As 
in a novel, there should not be too much antici- 
patory declaration and revelation giving the plot 
away too soon. This caution is particularly 
applicable to those rare occasions when it may 
be advisable not to indicate the subject too 
clearly at the outset, or perhaps not at all. In 
the conflict of opinion and the antagonism of 
interests it not infrequently happens that preju- 
dices are so strong, and hostility so violent, 
that when a speaker announces his subject a 
part, if not the whole, of his audience is at 
once in opposition. They wish to hear noth- 
ing from his side. They do not believe in it 
and, furthermore, they do not wish to believe 
in it. To announce, in effect, that the speaker 
is going to persuade them to his views if he 
can, is to rouse all their power of resistance, if 
not to stir up their personal animosity and viol- 



The Subject 4 1 

ence against the speaker himself. Some will 
leave the room, others will stay to stop the 
speaking. Such demonstration may be occur- 
ring any day, but in the stormy years of the 
struggle for the Union there were notable ex- 
amples which have become historic. Some- 
times the opposition element was ready to 
drown a voice which was known to be on the 
other side, although the subject on which it 
was to speak had not been announced. Such 
was the attitude towards Wendell Phillips of 
the Faneuil Hall mass-meeting, gathered to 
denounce the murder of Lovejoy,and of a hun- 
dred other audiences before which he spoke in 
the days of pro- and anti-slavery sentiment. 
Such was the uproarious tumult when George 
William Curtis was escorted by a bodyguard 
to a platform in Philadelphia in 1859, anc ^ such, 
once more, was the ruffianly greeting which 
Henry Ward Beecher received in Liverpool 
when he essayed to vindicate the North in the 
Civil War. In all these instances, and others 
like them, it would be throwing oil on the 
flame to state the subject which the speaker has 
most vividly in his own mind. If he must state 



42 The Occasional Address 

it at all it will be when some degree of toler- 
ation has been secured ; but the better place is 
near the close, when the object and purpose of 
the speech is accomplished. Up to this con- 
clusion and end of all persuasion the speaker 
has been working his way and drawing his un- 
willing listeners after him. If he has brought 
them to his own point of view at last, it is 
soon enough to tell them so, or at least to for- 
mulate the wording of a subject which has been 
all along definite and clear in his own mind, 
and is at length plain to his hearers. 

This reservation of the subject, it is to be 
borne in mind, is necessary or even justifiable 
Reservation on *y when an early announcement 
of theme. Q f j t ma y antagonize an audience. 
In all other cases it is to the advantage of 
speaker and hearer alike, that the subject be 
plainly stated at the beginning of the discourse. 
By this it is not meant that the theme is to be 
formulated in the opening sentence or even in 
the first paragraph. This would savor of a sud- 
denness and bluntness which belongs neither to 
good art nor to nature, in both of which there are 
gradual approaches to any work of dignity and 



The Subject 43 

eminence. Every lofty mountain has its foot- 
hills ; every great river its declining banks, and 
precipitous surprises are rare. In conversation 
even, when a person is to be approached on a 
matter which is uppermost in the speaker's 
mind, it is kept back until the preparatory 
commonplaces about the weather or the minis- 
ter, the crops or the election, business or schools, 
work or play, shall lead up naturally to the 
topic of immediate concern. A similar follow- 
ing of nature will be desirable in deliberate 
address. 




IV. 
THE PLAN. 

THE object of discourse being clear, the 
theme being definitely stated for one's 
self, and concisely worded for the hearers, the 
natural impulse is to begin at once with what is 
value of to be said. This, however, does not 
a pan. m ean taking up the pen to write the 

first sentence, or even the introductory para- 
graphs. It might be said that it would be very 
natural for an orator to proceed at once to what 
first occurs to him, following this with the next 
thought, and so on to the end. But, unfortu- 
nately, the best oratory is not meditation, 
rumination, or monologue. Instead, it is or- 
ganized, methodically arranged thought, having 
a purpose to accomplish by the most effective 
disposition of mental forces and verbal expres- 
sion. As much skill may be required to deter- 
44 



The Plan 45 

mine the order and sequence of thoughts, or 
even of words, as in marshalling and directing 
the divisions of an army for the carrying of a 
fortification. No military commander attempts 
this by taking as they come a crowd of civilians, 
or of soldiers even, and leading them in such 
an order or disorder against a fortress. Masses 
of men are efficient and available only as they 
are skilfully separated, arranged, and brought 
forward. The same is true of the mental forces 
which are to carry any stronghold of opinion or 
belief, of ignorance or prejudice. Out of a 
medley of thoughts, reflections, facts, reasons, 
and imaginations, relevant and irrelevant, those 
available and appropriate are to be chosen, and 
more rejected, perhaps, than retained. How 
many will come from all quarters, even when 
the subject of discourse is clearly in mind, can 
with difficulty be estimated. Perhaps one in 
five or ten that flit through the mind is all that 
can be made useful for the theme in hand. 
When these are caught and collected there still 
remains the task of getting them into order, 
commonly called plan-making. This process 
has been insisted upon by every writer upon 



46 The Occasional Address 

the art of public speech, from Corax to the 
present day. It is similar to that in any con- 
structive art, as that of architecture or of 
mechanical engineering, where a structure is to 
be built upon the basis of well-known laws of 
physics, or a machine upon those of force and 
resistance. No builder of an edifice begins to 
lay foundations even until he has in mind what 
is the purpose of the building, whether for 
amusement, for trade, for education, or for 
worship. Much less does he attempt to put 
together such timber and brick and stone as 
may be lying about in the order that they hap- 
pen to come to hand. Instead, he has before 
him an outline at least of the main divisions, 
apartments, and stories, for ever so simple and 
plain a house ; and for the more elaborate 
structure he has drawings in detail and scale 
dimensions to the fraction of an inch. In ma- 
chinery construction, minuteness of calculation 
is still more exact, and all the measurements 
are from a centre, while the problem of arrang- 
ing large wheels and small, short shafts and 
long, for compactness and conservation of force, 
is akin to that which the commander has with 



The Plan 47 

regard to the disposition of his forces on the 
battle-field. Such minuteness of forethought 
may not always be possible or advisable to the 
builder of an oration, but in so far as it is to be 
an example of constructive art in the depart- 
ment of thought and its communication, it 
must conform to that law of prevision which 
is of essential utility in kindred arts and pur- 
suits. 

The value of such forethought in all cases is 
mainly to save ill-directed and hap-hazard toil 
and wasted labor, contributing as _. .. , 

& Direction of 

they do to ultimate failure. It is thought, 
possible that the builder of a house by repeated 
attempts, with much nailing up and pulling 
down again, with much cutting too long and 
too short, might at last succeed in putting up a 
simple shelter without a plan drawn on paper. 
Without a general idea in his head, however, 
and adhered to, not much of a result would be 
secured with a moderate amount of material at 
hand. Nor will the composer of an address 
that is to be anything more than a rambling 
talk to children be likely to distinguish him- 
self by general remarks made up of such 



48 The Occasional Address 

thoughts as come in his way, thrown together 
in the order in which they happen to arrive. 
This may answer in the case of the newspaper 
" notes " which literary men contribute to news- 
papers and serials, charming in their facile dis- 
cursiveness, but it will not do for the educated 
public speaker. Audiences appreciate, as they 
demand, something of artistic value in dignified 
address. They can distinguish between slip- 
shod, careless, ill-arranged, unplanned discourse 
and that in which the speaker has seen the pur- 
pose and end of his speech from the beginning, 
and has ordered his approaches with a view to 
his object. They may not discover this at first, 
but they will be sure to know it at last ; just as 
the passer-by may have little understanding of 
what a building is to be when he looks at the 
frame going up, but sees its beauty and pro- 
portion and design in the finished structure. 

The desirability of a definite plan being ad- 
mitted, both for the sake of the writer of a dis- 
course and of those who shall hear it, it will 
be pertinent to inquire about the principles 
which should govern its construction. 

Order is the first of these, as distinguished 



The Plan 49 

from the greater or less disorder in which 
thoughts arise. Some order of se- 0rderingof 
quence they must of necessity have, material, 
as they are uttered one after another in continu- 
ous speaking ; but such order may have no 
other characteristic than that of accidental suc- 
cession. It may be the order of immigrants 
coming off a ship. The first to run down the 
plank may be a Swede, the next an Italian. 
After him comes a man from Ulster, followed 
by a Greek. A Dane treads on the heels of a 
Hungarian, a Frenchman pushes a Polander, 
and a Russian crowds a Turk. The only order 
is that of single file, one at a time, with an oc- 
casional overlapping. A natural order which 
might be established for a ship's company of 
such people would be the national, by which 
all Frenchman should herd by themselves, and 
Netherlanders by themselves, and so with all 
the rest ; or again all who are bound for the 
West, or for the South, by themselves ; or any 
other principle of division and aggregation 
might be adopted, which should group individu- 
als upon some ground common to them. Such 

an order in composition may be termed that of 
4 



50 The Occasional Address 

association, as distinguished from the helter- 
skelter succession in which unrelated thoughts 
follow each other in the undisciplined mind, or 
in any mind when working lazily. The princi- 
ple of association will be some common prop- 
erty or logical suggestion, made so plain to the 
hearer that he can trace the natural connection 
as easily as he would observe the reason for 
grouping a company of Mongolians, Caucasians, 
or Africans by themselves ; and also for not 
mingling them promiscuously in making a race 
classification. Thoughts about tariff will not 
be accompanied by theological views ; coinage 
arguments will not intrude upon literary criti- 
cism ; patriotic sentiments will not suggest a 
study of ancient pottery ; and the lessons of a 
noble life will not be alloyed with the political 
prospects of a presidential candidate. 

The same is true of the thoughts upon any 
subject which come singly or in troops from all 
principles of °t uarters oi tne universe. They must 
arrangement. k e marshalled in some order different 
from that of their arrival. Upon what further 
principle ? Almost any one, it may be replied, 
if it is only one, and not two or three. This 



The Plan 51 

unity is not so much a principle of order in 
general as the essential of any and every order 
in which the thoughts to be communicated can 
be arranged. As there can well be but one 
theme of a single discourse, so every branch of 
it must be in connection with the central idea 
so intimately that its unity is apparent as well 
as real. 

It is because of this unity which prevails in 
the plan of every well-regulated discourse that 
the customary order of plan-making 

° Three divi- 

is in the succession of Introduction, sionsof 

Discussion, and Conclusion, which is 
as natural a sequence as that of morning, mid- 
day, and evening. Like any other undertaking 
it must have a beginning, a longer or shorter 
continuance, and an end. One of these three 
terms of the proportion may be dropped by 
the eccentric or the pretentious speaker ; but 
something will be missed by the hearer who is 
not quite ready to be plunged into the thick of 
the argument, or who is left to make his own 
application of it in an abrupt ending. In spite 
of all new discoveries and nomenclatures, the 
human nature which is not new still demands 



52 The Occasional Address 

the natural order of growth in discourse from a 
beginning to an end with increasing volume 
and power, and expects this as inevitably as it 
looks for increasing heat and denser foliage 
with the procession of summer days. 

In the order, then, which is established by 
Association and Unity will follow next Growth. 
The opening sentiments of a discourse will be 
followed by stronger thoughts, and these in turn 
by the strongest reasons in closing. This, of 
course, relates only to the large and general 
outline, the three-fold division which belongs 
to the conventional and almost universal form 
of public address in all its history. What 
maxims shall have weight in the minor divisions 
and subdivisions of any discourse cannot be the 
subject of suggestion even. They belong to 
the realm of topic, and of personal taste, and 
that domain into which the orator must go 
without other guide than his own sense of 
what is fitting. He will be directed by the 
occasion, the cause, the character, the prospect, 
the retrospect. On the same occasion and in 
the same cause one man will proceed in one 
way, another in another, and both will produce 
similar results. The law of liberty works in no 



The Plan 53 

single direction. Much plan-work, therefore, 
must of necessity be left to the writer's own 
invention. After he has determined that his 
main points shall be referrible to a single prop- 
osition, and that they shall succeed one another 
by some law of association and with increasing 
power, and that the thoughts which belong to 
the beginning shall be placed there, and those 
which pertain to the conclusion shall wait their 
turn, then the writer may use a large liberty in 
the disposition of his material. Better than 
minute directions for this or that occasion will 
be the study of examples of planning by wise 
speakers on kindred subjects and similar occa- 
sions. The careful reading and analysis of 
their discourses will reveal the framework on 
which they built masterpieces of instruction, 
argument, and appeal. There is no lack of 
such literature, and no occasion that is likely 
to arise is unrepresented in its marvellous va- 
riety of topic and treatment. 

The time spent in elaborating the outline of 
discourse is by no means lost. In the first place, 
a marking out of the general direc- Plan preV ents 
tion which the discussion is to take di & ression - 
is preventive of such digressions as are apt to 



54 The Occasional Address 

occur when the line of argument is not clearly 
determined beforehand. Nothing is more un- 
certain than the suggestions and associations of 
the cogitating faculty. The ramifying tend- 
ency of rapid thinking is well known, and 
nothing is easier than to let one thought throw 
out a side branch, and this another lateral shoot, 
and on, and on, until the proper line and axis 
of growth is deserted and the discourse be- 
comes like a tree whose branches are all turned 
aside and still farther away from the perpen- 
dicular which the main trunk should have 
followed. Indeed a large part of the discipline 
of composition is in the constant checking of a 
straying mind. Accordingly it is a great ad- 
vantage to have the main line of thought so 
clearly laid down in advance that the thinker 
shall know when he is progressing directly, and 
also when he is off the track and far afield. If 
he is inclined to wander when planning his 
speech, it is easier to note any point of depart- 
ure at a glance by reason of the compactness 
of his " brief " and to bring himself into line at 
once. It is very much as in the case of the 
traveller, who can lay out his journey by the 



The Plan 55 

map better than he can discover his best course 
with the whole unexplored country lying near 
and far, seen and unseen, before him. In the 
one case, he is feeling his way from point to 
point, sometimes taking diverging paths, some- 
times losing the way altogether. In the other 
instance, he is careful only to make the best 
and most of a path which has been indicated 
in advance. There is no perplexity as to its 
directness or its termination. It is known how 
and where it will come out, whatever may be 
its undiscovered and undeveloped resources. 

Proportion is a further advantage secured by 
a well-ordered plan. It is easy to fall into 
the error of disproportionate division secures 

of the main parts of a composition. P r °P° rtlon - 
With cautious writers it is common to over- 
load and unduly lengthen the Introduction for 
fear that the material at hand, or to be gath- 
ered, will not hold out. The incautious writer 
is apt to commit the same mistake at the other 
end of his address, and draw out his Conclusion 
inordinately because of his improvidence or 
laziness in previous sections. Or, once more, 
the body of the discourse may be overstocked 



56 The Occasional Address 

or attenuated in ideas, with little introduction, 
and no conclusion other than a sudden and un- 
expected stop. Want of time is the customary 
apology. The true reason is a faulty distribution 
of time. A ten-minute speech, in its way, can 
be constructed with as harmonious proportions 
as one of an hour in length. But whether short 
or long, the only security for such construction 
lies in the proper arrangement of the plan, and 
in strict adherence to its relative allotments. 

An experienced writer will doubtless ask: 
What is to be done with those suggestions of a 
After- better way which actual composition 

thoughts. ften inspires ? The general reply 
is that no first draft of the outlines of a dis- 
course is to hamper the mind in its reaching after 
the best plan. The preliminary sketch is rather 
to aid the writer in finding the best way, that 
is, the one which is the most direct to its object. 
But, the general direction being determined by 
the first sketch, a shorter and better road is not 
on this account prohibited. Many a surveyor 
who has submitted his preliminary route-line 
for a new railway, and has had it accepted, has 
found a shorter cut still more satisfactory when 



The Plan 57 

the road came to be built. And that man who 
is confident that he will make no change in his 
house-plan while the house is building, has an 
uncommonly exalted opinion of his powers of 
prevision, higher perhaps than he has when the 
house is finished and he has occupied it awhile. 
Still, the more devising he does in advance, the 
better it will be for himself and the builder; 
and the more forethought the writer gives to 
his plan, the better will be the composition, and 
the sooner will he come to the object in view. 
There must of course be taken into account 
the plan which the experienced writer may 
make as he writes, keeping the main The skilled 
line of his discourse always in view, wnter s plan# 
and avoiding with a craftsman's intuition the 
danger of being diverted from his purpose. But 
this quick discernment and severe control con- 
stitute one of the late rewards of patient ana- 
lytic and synthetic labor, — which is the best 
method of plan-making for a beginner. Its 
processes may be tedious and seemingly re- 
tarding, but in the end, when results are com- 
puted, such forethought will appear among the 
economies of composition. 



V. 



THE INTRODUCTION. 



THE plan being deliberately sketched, and 
filled in with such minuteness as the time 
and accumulated material of the writer will per- 
mit, he will be impatient to construct the com- 
plete fabric of his discourse section by section. 
Ordinarily he will wish to begin with the open- 
ing sentences, whether he afterward keeps them 
unchanged or not. A provisional or experi- 
Provisionai mental introduction is better than 

introduction. ^ mu(;h q ^ q ^ thought about the 

initial paragraph, something with which to get 
under way and to acquire momentum enough 
to give movement and life to the main body of 
the discourse. It may be discarded when this 
is secured and count no more than the prelim- 
inary " scoring " of the thoroughbred before he 
crosses the starting line. Still the preparatory 
58 



The Introduction 59 

spin has brought him to his racing pace and 
therefore has its value. It is much the same 
with the introduction which is written to give a 
fair "send-off." 

The final and accepted introduction will, 
however, have certain qualities that 

Elements of 

are indispensable to so prominent a the final 

.... t^ introduction. 

division. For it is to be observed 
that this portion of the discourse is probably lis- 
tened to by a larger part of an audience than 
any subsequent section, especially if the speaker 
be a stranger, or if his topic be an unusual one. 
However much attention may be relaxed, and 
thoughts wander as the address lengthens, 
there is a general if not universal listening to 
the opening sentiments of the speaker. There- 
fore it is incumbent upon him that his words 
have at least a negative value, and that he does 
not violate, in his first paragraph, one or two 
common principles of good taste and of wise 
policy. 

The first of these is the maxim of conciliation. 
It is a commonplace to suggest that 

, , , . „ Conciliation. 

no man can be eloquent to a disaffect- 
ed audience. He may be as earnest, as logical, 



60 The Occasional Address 

as skilful in argument, as elegant in diction, as 
strong in appeal, as under more propitious cir- 
cumstances, but he will have none of these 
virtues in the opinion of a hostile assembly. 
Nor is it for the orator always to choose his 
auditory. The advocate at the bar cannot, and 
he seldom finds listeners entirely with him ; 
sometimes they are wholly opposed to him. 
The same is true of the legislative assembly and 
the political campaign meeting. Even the 
minister of the Word has in his congregation 
dissenting elements, or he may easily create 
them by an unwelcome message, or an unpopu- 
lar theme. It is, however, to the occasional 
orator, appearing perhaps as a stranger before 
an expectant or curious multitude, that the 
expediency arises of singular wisdom and close 
adherence to the law of conciliation, both in its 
positive and negative application, — not to rouse 
antagonism, and to allay it if already existing. 
To do this wisely, conciliation must not be 
overdone. The anxiety or willingness to pro- 
pitiate is sometimes so great that the audience 
becomes as conscious of it as the speaker, 
greatly to his prejudice. There are limits, for 



The Introduction 61 

instance, to the amount of flattering things 
which can safely be said to an assembly as well 
as to a person. It may listen, and even re- 
spond with a sort of corporate loyalty when its 
town, society, or state is excessively praised ; 
but this is no indication that many do not see 
through an artifice which is intended to make 
them well disposed toward the speaker. It 
becomes therefore a matter of both delicacy 
and difficulty to secure that good understand- 
ing between orator and audience which shall 
preserve the self-respect of the one and win the 
favor of the other. This is particularly the 
case when the hearers, as a body or in part, are 
known to be opposed in sentiment, opinion, or 
belief to the person who is to address them. 
Any attempt to conciliate will be regarded with 
suspicion, and flattery is fatal as indicating arti- 
fice or cowardice or weakness. Defiance, though 
bad policy in general, is much more in keeping 
with the spirit of such an assembly. Savages 
even have a rude respect for an enemy with 
bravery enough to taunt them, and a howling 
mob will sometimes yield to the appeal for fair 
play, when they would not be soothed by one's 



62 The Occasional Address 

praising the spark of decency that may be lurk- 
ing under many layers of dirt and disagreeable- 
ness. Political and reform orators have found 
conciliation the first if not the greatest difficulty 
in winning audiences over to their cause. Suc- 
ceeding or failing in this initial step, they have 
gained or lost their victory from the start. 

It is almost superfluous to state the reason 

why so much importance is attached to the 

good nature of a company of hearers. If it 

were always composed of pure intel- 

Antagonism 

of prejudice lect, with judging and reasoning 

and ignorance. ... , ... , . 

faculties in calm condition, capable 
of free and untrammelled action, there would 
be little need of conciliatory words, whatever 
the sentiments of the speaker might be. But 
in the natural blending of opinions and feelings, 
beliefs and motives, doctrines and prejudices, 
the emotions are the active and controlling 
elements, with a wonderful facility in passing 
themselves off as purely intellectual in character. 
Every observer knows how often opinion is 
mistaken for absolute fact, belief for truth, wil- 
fulness for conscientiousness. Accordingly the 
speaker has to approach the minds of his hearers 



The Introduction 63 

in many instances through enveloping mists of 
opposition, prejudice, and antipathy, to say 
nothing of ignorance and misinformation. To 
dispel such misunderstanding, remove prejudice, 
disarm opposition, and put the hearer on neu- 
tral ground even is no easy task ; while to win 
him over into the orator's own province is an 
achievement which may well gratify one of the 
highest ambitions which he may cherish. 

If there is a single maxim that applies to the 
majority of cases, it is one which advises a dig- 
nified reserve in both commendation and con- 
demnation when there is extreme opposition, 
and very little of anything approaching flattery 
in ordinary circumstances. An audience always 
respects a speaker who respects himself, and 
they will pardon him if he does not go far out 
of the way to propitiate them. This does not 
imply, of course, that the wise man may not 
create a sentiment in his own favor by a skill 
which is so adroit that it shall seem natural and 
be effective. It will be found, however, that 
honesty and frankness appear to be, if they 
are not in reality, the principal features in 
such an appeal to the good sense of the hearers 



64 The Occasional Address 

as the speaker must make in the beginning, if 
his subsequent discourse is to prosper with 
Examples of them. A few exemplifications of 

conciliatory x 

introductions, timely and gracious conciliation 
will illustrate the truth and value of the 
maxim. 

When Samuel Adams addressed a large audi- 
encein Philadelphia in August, 1776, he made 
good terms with his hearers by saying at the 
outset : 

" Truth loves an appeal to the common sense of mankind. 
Your unperverted understanding can best determine on sub- 
jects of a practical nature. Positions above the comprehen- 
sion of the multitude are apt to be visionary and fruitless. 
He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to 
human happiness obvious to all." 

Henry Clay in speaking for a long-established 
revenue system in 1832 makes common ground 
with his political opponent by asking, " Can 
we proceed to this work of destruction without 
a violation of public faith ? " When Garfield 
as a Representative was about to tell the House 
that it had by its action resolved to enter upon 
a revolution against the Constitution and Gov- 
ernment of the United States in 1879, ne P re_ 
faced his speech by saying : " I wish I could 



The Introduction 65 

be proved a false prophet in reference to the 
result of this action. I wish that I could be 
overwhelmed with the proof that I am utterly 
mistaken in my views." Similar concession to 
opposing sentiment won respectful consider- 
ation for his own reluctant and serious con- 
viction. One of the most graceful opening 
sentences is that of Stephen A. Douglas's speech 
on the war, at Springfield, Illinois, in 1861 : 
" I am not insensible to the patriotic motives 
which prompted you to do me the honor to 
invite me to address you upon the momentous 
issues now presented in the condition of the 
country." Two years later, when Abraham 
Lincoln began his Gettysburg address there 
was no need of conciliating the listening throng, 
but if there had been, his reference to the 
fathers who made a new nation, and to the 
soldiers who gave their lives that the nation 
might not die, would have won the multitude. 
Assuming now that the audience is favor- 
ably disposed toward the speaker, 

. . - , Indifference 

either because it has no reason to and its re . 
be otherwise, or because he has suc- 
ceeded in removing disaffection, there may yet 



66 The Occasional Address 

exist, what is of almost equal disadvantage to 
him, a spirit of indifference whose continuance 
is destructive of the best oratorial results. In- 
differentism is better than opposition though 
worse than favor, it might be urged ; but it is 
worse than either : for an opposing element 
rouses the speaker to his best effort to overcome 
it, but unconcern inspires nothing beyond dis- 
couragement and despair. It is a dead-weight 
upon the speaker's spirits. There is no rebound 
and no response. His words strike as bullets 
strike earthworks and are lost and wasted. To 
banish this sluggish indifference becomes, then, 
the next necessity for an orator. It is not need- 
ful to ask whence it comes, nor when, nor why. 
To a greater or less degree it may exist in 
every assembly ; in some persons by nature, in 
others by present lack of interest in the theme, 
or by more immediate concern about some- 
thing else, or by any diversion and distraction 
that may arise. Causes do not concern the 
speaker so much as preventives and remedies. 
How can interest be roused and attention be 
secured is the second problem that he is to 
solve. 



The Introduction 67 

The first step towards its solution is to estab- 
lish the importance of his subject to his hearers. 
Not until their personal connection 

Establishing 

with his cause is made clear can a importance 

. of subject. 

profitable consideration of his words 
be depended upon. Therefore he will labor to 
make the connection clear between his topic 
and his audience. Its importance may be never 
so great absolutely. Is it also relatively to 
the company before him ? If he cannot show 
that it is, their attention will be only the civil- 
ity of good breeding, and their patience that of 
habit. The fact that a number of people have 
assembled to hear what is to be said on a given 
topic is a general guarantee of their interest in 
it. This implies, of course, that the subject is 
known beforehand, as in a lecture, or an adver- 
tised address on a public occasion. The same 
is true, in a measure, of an occasion which limits 
the speaker to a definite class of subjects, as the 
Sunday discourse or a course of lectures, scien- 
tific or literary. The audience is somewhat 
interested in anything that may be discussed 
within the customary range of topics. It may 
be a mild sort of interest, however, bordering 



68 The Occasional Address 

on indifference with a large portion of the as- 
sembly. If it is nothing more than mild, the 
speaker may need at times to make it more. 
At times, let it be observed, but not every time ; 
for it is easy to get into a way of making the 
present subject the most important of all sub- 
jects — until the next one is announced. Preach- 
ers are particularly inclined to fall into this 
habit of emphasizing unduly the present theme, 
forgetting how recently they did the same, and 
that a more important truth may be awaiting 
them. Other public speakers also have been 
known to magnify the occasion beyond its 
relative value. Still there are times and topics 
of unusual importance of which an audience 
may not be duly sensible. To make them so, 
will be a part of the speaker's business. It will 
not be enough to tell them that the occasion 
or the subject is momentous. They may as 
well be told to be good or generous or phil- 
anthropic, and with a similar result. There 
must be a general or a specific reason for such 
effort ; and in like manner the importance of 
any truth must have more than the assertion 
of the speaker to impress it upon the hearer. 



The Introduction 69 

Therefore considerable skill is requisite to make 
him understand that the subject in hand is of 
more than ordinary consequence, or of enough 
at least to rouse him from the indifference which 
may be habitual. 

This skill will take such direction as the good 
sense of the orator dictates. First, the oc- 
casion may help him. Webster recog- 

J *■ ° The occasion 

nized this in his famous definition often lends 

importance. 

of eloquence, and he himself was im- 
mensely advantaged in many instances by the 
associations and suggestions of the hour and 
the place, notably at Bunker Hill and Plymouth, 
as Lincoln was at Gettysburg. Such occasions 
are eloquent in themselves, and the orator has 
only to interpret their lesson and be their 
spokesman. They set the current of all 
thoughts in the same direction, while the 
speaker makes observations by the way. The 
importance of what he utters is determined as 
much by the occasion as by his own efforts, 
and these in turn are greatly helped by the 
tide of concordant sentiment which flows along 
with them. Against this drift of sympathetic 
feeling none but a simpleton will allow himself 



70 The Occasional Address 

to oppose anything discordant, incongruous, or 
hostile. If he is so disposed, he should hus- 
band his resources for a more propitious time 
of neutrality, or of avowed opposition on the 
part of his hearers, and make the most of the 
favoring occasion and its present importance. 
Nothing indeed can be more important at the 
time than the occasion, not even the man 'who 
is to interpret and apply its lessons. So thought 
Judge Brackenridge of Philadelphia, when 
in 1789 he delivered a eulogy on the brave 
men who had fallen in the War of the Rev- 
olution : " I know my abilities rise not to a level 
with so great a subject, but I love the memory 
of the men who have risked their lives in the 
war of America, and it is my hope that the 
affection which I feel will be to me instead of 
genius." 

If, however, the speaker be not subordinate 
to the occasion, and cannot be aided by it, he 
finds the task of impressing his auditors a more 
difficult one. A man like Samuel Adams in the 
beginning of the speech quoted above may ac- 
complish it in an indirect way by saying : " I 
would gladly have declined an honor [of speak- 



The Introduction 71 

ing] to which I find myself unequal. I have 
not the calmness and impartiality which the 
infinite importance of this occasion demands." 
But if he had opened his address with the state- 
ment, " This is an infinitely important occa- 
sion," the effect would have been sadly marred. 
Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth, in the Con- 
necticut Convention of 1788, conveyed the 
right impression when he began his speech 
with the words : " Mr. President, this is a most 
important clause in the Constitution ; and the 
gentlemen do well to offer all the objections 
which they have against it." Sheridan, in his 
speech on the Begum Charge, approaches the 
topic in a novel way : " I shall not waste time 
by any preliminary observations on the import- 
ance of the subject before you. My friend 
Mr. Burke has already executed the task in a 
way most masterly and impressive." Lord 
Chatham did the same when, in his maiden 
speech, delivered in the House of Commons 
April 29, 1736, he said : " I am unable, Sir, to 
offer anything suitable to the dignity and im- 
portance of the subject which has not already 
been said by my honorable friend who made 



72 The Occasional Address 

the motion." And three years later he began 
his speech on the Spanish Convention thus: 
" Sir, there certainly has never been in Parlia- 
ment a matter of more high national concern 
than the convention referred to the considera- 
tion of this committee." And Burke had such 
a sense of the importance of American affairs 
to Great Britain that he termed the subject 
" an awful one, or there is none so on this side 
of the grave." 

Examples of emphasizing the importance of 
the speaker's theme might be multiplied be- 
justification yond the interest of the reader in 
i°n introduc- h tnem - Indeed, in one way or an- 
tion. other, it is expedient, to say the 

least, to establish at once the claim which a 
topic has upon the hearer. If it does not of 
itself make the demand evident, then the 
orator's business is to make it plain before 
he has trespassed long upon time and attention ; 
and the more adroitly he does this the better 
will be received what he has to say further in 
substantiation of this claim. In fact this will 
become the measure of his right to speak at 
all. If he have no important message, he has 



The Introduction 73 

no call to inflict himself upon an audience, un- 
less they have come together for diversion or 
amusement or to be bored. 

The audience being in good humor with the 
orator, and reasonably impressed with the im- 
portance of his subject, the introduc- 

1 m m Full state- 

tion may end with a fuller statement mentof sub- 
of the theme and its division for dis- 
cussion than it has been thus far convenient 
to make. In other words, the order and out- 
line of discourse maybe introduced or formally 
presented to the listeners. How fully and 
minutely is another question for the skill, tact, 
discretion, and wisdom of the speaker to deter- 
mine. In this, too, he will be governed largely 
by the law of proportion, by the probable 
interest and expectancy of the hearer, and by 
a politic reserve which does not anticipate the 
discussion too much. Still there should be a 
fuller statement of the topics to be discussed 
than can usually be given in the title or theme- 
wording. These may now be expanded in the 
statement by enumerating the order in which 
the principal divisions of the discourse will be 
taken up, a procedure which is often helpful 



74 The Occasional Address 

and gratifying to the attentive hearer. Judge 
Story's oration at Harvard in 1826, on "The 
Examples. Characteristics of the Age," illus- 
trates such enumeration at the close of his 
introduction where he says : 

"What I propose to myself on the present occasion is to 
trace out some of the circumstances of the age which connect 
themselves with the cause of science and letters ; to sketch 
here and there a light and shadow of our days ; to look some- 
what at our own prospects and attainments, and thus lay be- 
fore you something for reflection, for encouragement, and for 
admonition." 

This is his expanded version of a theme 
which is simply, " The Characteristics of the 
Age " : and in this fuller statement he outlines 
his entire discourse. In his memorial address 
on the lives of Jefferson and Adams, William 
Wirt, after alluding to the " consummation 
of their lives " in an introduction of some 
length, outlines his oration by saying briefly, 
" Let us recall the more prominent incidents of 
these illustrious lives," which were, as he after- 
ward recounts them, their early studies, politi- 
cal tendencies, associations, and championships, 
congressional careers, and presidential admini- 
strations. In the speech at the trial of Aaron 



The Introduction 75 

Burr, 1807, the same orator makes his state- 
ment in four propositions, corresponding to the 
four which his opponent had made, and then 
adds, " I beg leave to take up these propo- 
sitions in succession and give them those 
answers which to my mind are satisfactory." 
This is in accord with Quintilian's assertion 
that there is much attraction in an argu- 
ment which derives its substance from the 
pleading of an opponent, for the reason that 
it does not appear to have been composed at 
home but to be produced on the spot. This 
of course applies more particularly to forensic 
efforts, although there is much in them that 
is applicable to public address of every kind, 
for in a sense each hearer is a judge before 
whom some sort of a cause is presented. 

Such enumeration of propositions to be 
discussed should not, however, be too long for 
modern memories, nor be so minute as to leave 
nothing that may appear to spring spontane- 
ously from the course of discussion. It is 
probable, moreover, that such ordering of the 
outline has its best use in indicating to the 
hearer the progress of the speaker as he re- 



76 The Occasional Address 

announces the main propositions one after 
another as his speech proceeds. Like mile- 
stones, these landmarks of discourse as they are 
recalled and restated tell the audience how far 
they have come and how much farther they 
have to go. Sometimes an assembly is more 
patient than it would otherwise be when it 
perceives with evident relief that the last stage 
is not far away. 







VI. 
THE DISCUSSION. 

THIS word, Discussion, primarily denoting 
debate, will be used as a general term 
covering the various methods of discourse 
employed in the body of any public address. 
The variety of these methods is Discussion 
necessarily as great as the character ^ds ofdS- 
of different occasions, subjects, and course, 

speakers can make it. Recognizing this almost 
infinite diversity, writers upon the art of oratory 
at an early period attempted to classify the com- 
monest forms which were constantly recurring 
in social and civic life. 

Aristotle, twenty-two centuries ago, with 
full knowledge of all that his prede- 

, . . , t r i • Ancient clas- 

cessors had said and of what opin- S ificationsof 

ions his contemporaries held in an 

age of eloquence, makes a threefold division 

77 



78 The Occasional Address 

of orations into deliberative, judicial, and de- 
monstrative ; or those which relate to the 
future, the past, and the present, respectively ; 
things to be accomplished, or already done, or 
now doing or existing ; matters therefore to be 
deliberated about, or judged, or condemned, or 
praised. So also he makes a threefold division 
of the motive. For deliberative oratory it is 
the expedient or the inexpedient, with recom- 
mendation and dissuasion ; for judicial oratory 
the consideration is that of justice or injustice ; 
while the end of demonstrative speech is praise 
or blame resulting in honor or disgrace. Quin- 
tilian, after noticing different principles and 
methods of division adopted by Anaximenes, 
Protagoras, Isocrates, and other Greeks, adopts 
Aristotle's division with so much change of or- 
der as to make it, first, demonstrative ; second, 
deliberative ; third, judicial. He also notices 
the attempt of some Greek writers, whom 
Pliny the elder follows in his own day, to 
make it appear that there are almost innumer- 
able kinds of oratory. Against this minute 
division he is driven to say that for himself he 
might divide oratory into only two kinds, 






The Discussion 79 

judicial and extra-judicial, forensic and all 
others. But with his customary fairness he 
finally remarks that it has appeared safest to 
him to follow the majority of writers, and 
therefore he adopts the tripartite division just 
given. In the decline of oratory there was 
more or less tendency to minute division, es- 
pecially in scholastic ages, until the revival of 
learning brought back a wholesome respect for 
the best methods of antiquity, although it 
may be said that Aristotle, Cicero, and Quin- 
tilian were always standards of authority with 
speakers and rhetoricians who could read the 
languages in which these authors wrote. 

Sir Francis Bacon, in discoursing of the wis- 
dom of the ancients, condensed something of 
it in his " Antitheta," or rhetorical Modern cIas . 
commonplaces, acute in thought and situations, 
pointed in their concise expression ; but while 
he says nothing of the formal order of dis- 
course he does not depart materially from the 
decisions of antiquity. Sir Thomas Wilson, 
who died forty-five years before Sir Francis 
Bacon, published in 1553, ten years before 
Shakespeare was born, his Arte of Rhetorique, 



80 The Occasional Address 

the first text-book of composition and criticism 
in our language. The rules in this treatise are 
derived chiefly from Aristotle through Cicero 
and Quintilian. Two hundred years later, in 
1759, Hugh Blair appeared as the next writer 
of eminence upon the art of discourse, — so emi- 
nent that King George the Second was induced 
to establish a professorship of rhetoric and po- 
lite literature at the University of Edinburgh, 
and to appoint Dr. Blair as its first professor. 
In his enumeration of the ancient division he 
gives a clear definition of each, following Quin- 
tilian's order. He says " the scope of the 
Demonstrative was to praise or to blame ; that 
of the Deliberative to advise or to dissuade ; 
that of the Judicial to accuse or to defend." 
Then he adds : " This division runs through all 
the ancient treatises on Rhetoric and is followed 
by the moderns. It is a division which com- 
prehends most or all of the matters which can 
be the subject of public discourse." It suits 
his purpose, however, to adopt a division sug- 
gested by " the three great scenes of modern 
eloquence, namely, popular assemblies, the bar, 
and the pulpit," which he qualifies by saying 



The Discussion 81 

that " the eloquence of the bar is precisely the 
same with what the ancients call the judicial; 
and that of the popular assembly, though 
mostly what they term the deliberative spe- 
cies, yet admits also of the demonstrative; 
while the eloquence of the pulpit is altogether 
of a distinct nature and cannot be properly 
reduced under any of the heads of the ancient 
rhetoricians." In substance, he has not for- 
saken the division of his Greek and Roman 
masters. It is a long reach from Quintilian at 
Rome to George Campbell at Aberdeen, and 
from the close of the first century of our era 
to the year 1766 when the Philosophy of Rhet- 
oric was published. In his preface he remarks 
that considerable progress had been made by 
the Greeks and Romans in devising the proper 
rules of composition not only in the two sorts 
of poesy, epic and dramatic, but also in the 
three sorts of orations, the deliberative, the 
judicial, and the demonstrative. It will be 
observed here that he follows the order of 
Aristotle rather than that of Quintilian. He 
then adds : " And I must acknowledge that, 
as far as I have been able to discover, there 



82 The Occasional Address 

has been little or no improvement in this re- 
spect made by the moderns." 

Eighty years later, in 1846, Richard Whately, 
Archbishop of Dublin, the next prominent 

Recent das- writer u P on Composition, so far as 
sification. ne nas an y di v i s i on f the oration, 

does not disagree with Aristotle ; but he is 
more concerned with address to the under- 
standing and the will, with matters of style 
and delivery, than about different kinds of 
speeches. But twenty years after him, 1866, 
came another Aberdeen professor with a work 
which he confesses is more allied to Campbell, 
Blair, and Whately than to lighter works on 
English Composition. This writer was Alex- 
ander Bain, who is still held in high repute by 
the latest authorities in the province of rhet- 
oric. His classification is "according to the 
different occasions of oratory " ; each giving 
rise to a distinct method, and constituting a 
separate professional study : I. The oratory 
of the law courts ; II. Political oratory ; III. 
Pulpit oratory ; IV. Moral suasion. There 
can be discovered in this nomenclature a sur- 
vival of Aristotle's and Quintilian's terms, — 



The Discussion 83 

Judicial, Deliberative, and Demonstrative, for 
his two last divisions are practically but one, 
unless moral suasion be excluded from the 
pulpit and confined to biography, poetry, and 
the novel, according to Bain's intimation. A 
still later division has been made by Professor 
Genung into I. Determinate, including foren- 
sic, parliamentary, and pulpit oratory ; II. De- 
monstrative, or " that which impels toward 
noble, patriotic, and honorable sentiments and 
toward a large and worthy life." If, now, two 
of the three divisions under Determinate be 
called by their ancient names, we shall have 
for " forensic," judicial ; and for " parliament- 
ary," deliberative ; — pulpit oratory not being 
known until the early Christian centuries. 
Adding Demonstrative to the other two an- 
cient divisions, the real permanence of the 
great Athenian analyst's classification is ap- 
parent : Judicial, Deliberative, Demonstrative. 
It is worth observing that Aristotle places 
Demonstrative oratory last in or- 

Scope of 

der, as addressed to the hearer and Demonstra- 

, . i m T 1 • • 1 tive oratory. 

in the present time, while Judicial 

passes judgment upon what is past, and 



84 The Occasional Address 

Deliberative considers what is to come. He 
also makes praise or blame the object, and 
honor or dishonor the result of such speech. 
Now if inquiry be made about the kinds of 
address which fall within the scope of such 
oratory, it will be seen that commendation and 
condemnation must have objects as definite as 
the personal deeds and character of the man, or 
the corporate acts of a number of men, or the 
events which are not beyond human control 
and responsibility. Discourse of this nature 
will accordingly be demonstrative or epidictic 
in the sense of showing forth the true character 
of persons or actions, in order that such expo- 
sition may have its influence upon the hearer. 
In a word, it is the oratory of the object-lesson. 
This being true, it is pertinent to ask about 
the nature of the subjects to be discussed in 
such oratory. Leaving matters of litigation to 
judicial or forensic speech, and subjects of 
legislation to deliberative, and also, as a neces- 
sity, religious instruction to the pulpit, what 
remains for the occasional oration ? Things, it 
may be answered, as immaterial as the human 
soul, and as evanescent as the instantaneous act. 



The Discussion 85 

But as the thoughts of the heart issue in deeds, 
and deeds repeated result in character, and the 
character of the majority becomes 

J J Its themt im- 

that of a nation or an age, it is im- material and 

, . . personal. 

mensely important that the impal- 
pable and fleeting forces which are at the found- 
ation of the social fabric should be discerned, 
and that communities should be helped to 
discriminate between the good and the bad, 
between policy and principle, the honorable 
and the dishonorable. This they cannot always 
be expected to do until they are made to see the 
difference between good and evil. So also with 
motives and incentives to action. A concrete 
example effectively presented is worth a dozen 
precepts. A personal trait of character, illus- 
trated by a striking instance of its working, 
inspires respect and provokes imitation and cul- 
tivation of the same more than many injunctions 
to obey and follow the abstract truth which it 
embodies or illustrates. Or, on the other hand, 
an evil event, an act of fraud, injustice, or in- 
iquity, divested of its cloak and placed in strong 
daylight, becomes its own condemnation, and 
also an admonition to the public. 



86 The Occasional Address 

Besides the acts and character of prominent 

individuals, and the enactments of national 

legislatures, and the trend of public 

Ethical and & r 

political opinion, and the high or low level of 

subjects. . .... 

public morals, there is another legiti- 
mate field for the exercise of criticism by 
demonstrative oratory in the sphere of general 
truths which have a present, because an ever- 
lasting and constant value. What is right or 
honorable or beneficent or beautiful or gener- 
ous or self-sacrificing or patriotic has always 
been recognized as such and always will be in 
the main features of these virtues. Belonging 
to a long past and having the promise of a long 
future, they are emphatically the possession of 
the present as a moving point in the procession 
of the years, an eternal Now. By inheritance 
and by the responsibility of a trust-holder for 
the future, the present time guards, keeps, and 
uses these imperishable principles of right and 
honor, benevolence and generosity. It is by 
reason of this permanence and continuity of 
unalterable principles that language, as the ex- 
pression of common conviction, speaks of them 
as always in the present, as for example: 



The Discussion 87 

" Socrates said that the immortal is indestruct- 
ible, and that the soul is immortal " — not was ; 
the present tense, not the past. 

There is, then, no lack of subject-matter in 
demonstrative oratory. Literally its field is as 
wide as the world of universal truth Range of its 
and as specific as personal character. 
If a speaker can afford to do it, and is able to 
do it profitably, he may roam at large over a 
boundless range of universal and timeless truth, 
or again, if he choose and can do it, he may 
describe a small circle in this wide field and 
sink a shaft like a well into the depths of a 
single character, or of a single act, opinion, 
sentiment of any community, nation, or age. 
Extensively, therefore, or intensively he may 
work according to his will and courage, his 
choice and ability, or according to the need of 
the audience and the suggestion of the occa- 
sion. But he will take care to bring out of the 
length and breadth of the wide domain of per- 
petual truth, or out of its heights and depths, 
things which may be set before his hearers for 
ideals to follow or for examples to shun. 

The demonstrative treatment of such themes 



88 The Occasional Address 

has methods as peculiarly its own as those of the 
it m th ds court-room, the legislative hall, or the 
areexposi- pulpit. If the word demonstrative 

tory. x L 

or, as the Greeks had it, epidictic,has 
a primary meaning not conveyed in our present 
use of the term, it is the idea and the act of point- 
ing out and exhibiting, — a sense which is some- 
times lost in that of demonstration by argument 
and proof, so called. To exhibit, therefore, what 
is, or to point out what needs only to be seen in 
order to be admitted, is the import of the term. 
Such exhibition and revelation requires meth- 
ods distinct, definite, and appropriate to the un- 
dertaking. For there are hundreds of truths 
clothed in concrete form and existing on every 
hand which are powerless, or less powerful than 
they might be, because they are unrecognized 
and uninterpreted. They pass in and out among 
men in commonplace disguise. 

A primary qualification, therefore, of the 
demonstrative orator is that he be somewhat 
The orator of a discoverer. He must find what 
a discoverer. j g nQ j. comm only seen, or unveil 
what is but dimly discerned by the heedless. 
The ability to do this may be the gift of a seer 



The Discussion 89 

only, but, possessed in any degree, it may be 
cultivated. The sublime vision from the field 
of Zophim was seen by the diviner of Midian 
whose eyes had been shut but now were open. 
So the open vision may come sometimes by 
diligent cultivation to one who at first saw 
imperfectly. In some degree, then, the orator 
must have the perceptive faculty developed, 
and his success will largely depend upon its 
exercise. To see the unseen and to find what 
is hidden from the unobservant is the foundation 
of demonstrative discourse; for how can the 
speaker point out what he himself has not 
found, and what every one sees beforehand 
needs no exposition. Such discernment is 
greatly sharpened by the habit of observation. 
By this is not meant a casual notice of occur- 
rences and facts, but rather the prolonged 
study which attends inductive processes, where 
similarities in things dissimilar are discovered, 
and causes are traced from effects and results 
are seen to follow precedent action. It is a 
searching and investigating process which, pa- 
tiently pursued, will result in discovery in the 
fields pertaining to demonstrative speech as 



90 The Occasional Address 

surely as in the domain of any other science. 
Such perception may be intuitive in a great 
dramatist or a great orator, but in most men it 
is the result of cultivating the observant and 
perceptive faculties which are seldom entirely 
lacking in any person. 

In its operation it is known among rhetori- 
cians as Invention, a word which to modern 
invention, understandings has a sense partly of 
creation and partly of discovery, and is best 
apprehended when applied to a new com- 
bination of matter, as in a machine, and is 
most frequently associated with the modern 
meaning of patent, as in a patented inven- 
tion. In Cicero's day, however, and how much 
earlier it is not easy to say, he who " in- 
vented " " came upon " an idea, a thought, a 
perception, a quality, a trait of character in 
man or race, the meaning of an event, a drift 
of sentiment, a tendency of an age. He might 
" meet with " it by chance or more likely " find " 
it after much searching ; but when found it was 
his Invention, and the finding process was 
called by the same name, which altered condi- 
tions have so changed in meaning as to warrant 



The Discussion 9 1 

and perhaps demand this notice of the change 
in the word itself. Meantime the Latin signi- 
fication has lived on with the treatises in which 
the word is embalmed. 

It has been the custom of some writers in 
recent years to assert that Invention is beyond 
the limits of rhetoric proper, which, 

1 ii- i • i i Among the 

they add, is concerned with modes ancients in 

r . * #^.1 i j. '. composition. 

of expression only. The best writers 
of antiquity did not think so. Their large 
views of the art of rhetoric may indeed be 
safely narrowed so as not to include the entire 
circle of human knowledge as they then did ; 
but in doing this care is to be taken not to 
eliminate one of the two essential factors in the 
process of composition. For there must be a 
thought to communicate antecedent to any 
method of communication, as a person gen- 
erally thinks before he speaks. This thought 
may be called an accumulation from which to 
select the material of discourse, and not the dis- 
course itself, or it may be ruled out as antece- 
dent and preliminary to the act of composition ; 
but he will be a most remarkable writer who 
can go far along in his discourse without hav- 



9 2 The Occasional Address 

ing to renew his inventive process, however 
complete his preparation may have been. To 
separate invention from composition is like 
separating the gathering of stone, brick, iron, 
and wood from the building process. Provide 
beforehand as he may, every builder knows 
that much more will have to be collected as the 
edifice goes up, and he does not discriminate 
between the labor and cost of finding material 
and incorporating it into the structure. So let 
any one who is composing say, if he can, that 
the moments he has spent in finding a thought 
were no part of the time taken to express that 
thought, and therefore not to be reckoned as 
composition, which upon this theory relates en- 
tirely to words and their arrangement. Instead 
of this, it is safe to say that invention, or 
thought-gathering, is the primary if not the 
principal part of composition, and if done well 
makes later processes easy and effective. If it is 
ill done, no choice of words, no elegance of dic- 
tion, no graces of figurative language can make 
good the loss, as no elaboration of external 
ornament can atone for the absence of solid 
foundations and strong walls in a building. 



The Discussion 93 

And as thought and words are inseparably 
joined together in the mind, and in conversa- 
tion so intimately connected as to go hand in 
hand, so in writing and in public speaking, 
especially in extemporaneous speaking, they 
cannot be divorced except by a refinement of 
abstraction which is worthy of an eleventh-cen- 
tury schoolman. Sir Francis Bacon in the 
beginning of the seventeenth century did 
indeed assert in his Advancement of Learning 
that "to invent is to discover that we know 
not, and the use of this invention is no other 
but out of the knowledge whereof our mind is 
already possessed, to draw forth or call before us 
that which may be pertinent tothepurposewhich 
we take into consideration," as a remembrance 
or suggestion. But practically in almost all high 
discourse there are many things which were not 
known or thought when the composition of it 
was begun, or when the speech was begun, if in 
any degree extemporaneous. And if there is a 
stock fund of knowledge that can thus be drawn 
upon it must have been discovered, invented, 
or met with as a foundation for subsequent use. 
Observation, perception, and invention are, 



94 The Occasional Address 

then, one and all, the essential preliminaries to 
demonstrative oratory ; and the ora- 

New combi- 
nations de- tor must be a discoverer before he 

can find something to exhibit that is 
worthy of an expenditure of attention and time 
by the listener. What can you offer us that we 
have not seen and do not know already ? is the 
question which every audience has a right to 
ask of any man who stands before it with the 
implied offer of something worth the hour sur- 
rendered, multiplied by the number of his 
hearers. What new truth have you discov- 
ered ? or to make a more reasonable request, 
What new combination or restatement of old 
truths, or what larger revelation of a hitherto 
half-perceived truth, can you present ? Or can 
you bring out into strong relief a fact, trait, or 
tendency that we have been dimly conscious 
of, but have passed by unheeded ? Such inter- 
rogations the speaker should first put to him- 
self ; for if the audience does not get a satis- 
factory answer in one way or another, it will 
have its own revenge in the future and be con- 
spicuous by its absence when this particular 
speaker proffers his next invention. 



The Discussion 95 

The subjects of demonstrative oratory being 
of the character intimated above, and the ne- 
cessity of keen observation and dili- 

. . Exposition 

gent invention being admitted, it will by repre- 
be in order to ask, What are the 
modes of composition which best suit the pre- 
sentation of the orator's findings ? The word 
which defines this kind of discourse will sug- 
gest an answer. As the speecn is demonstrat- 
ive, the method of the discussion must be that 
which best shows forth its master. Therefore, 
it will be expository in character, setting out 
for inspection the truths that have been discov- 
ered, and literally exposing them to public gaze. 
This will be the general method. But this ex- 
position will include processes which precede 
or follow the technical exposition of the rhet- 
oricians according to the nature and require- 
ments of the subject under consideration. In 
some themes of occasional discourse the orator 
will need, above all, to exercise the faculty of 
re-presentation to others. By this is meant the 
ability to make others see as he sees, and to 
understand as he understands. In a material 
way it is the work of the painter who puts upon 



96 The Occasional Address 

canvas the picture that is in his mind, the ap- 
pearance which a landscape or human face has 
to his vision. He re-presents it to all behold- 
ers. The orator does the same, with words for 
media instead of colors. As media, words have 
the advantage of colors in presenting the sub- 
jects with which a speaker has oftenest to deal. 
At least such verbal presentation will be found 
inseparable from themes as objective as per- 
sonal character. Let the Memorial Address or 
Commemorative Discourse be taken as an illus- 
trative type of the value of descriptive writing. 
That which is to be re-presented is as intangible 
and yet as real as personal traits, the like of 
which every hearer has observed in various de- 
gree and combination. But the speaker's busi- 
ness on some particular occasion is to show 
what traits were predominant in a certain char- 
acter, and in what degree, and with what result. 
If he could paint the rainbow he could not de- 
pict such a character in colors. He may do it 
in words. 

For instance, when George Bancroft pro- 
nounced a eulogy on Andrew Jackson, a man 
whom he admired, he portrayed immaterial 



The Discussion 97 

qualities with the fidelity of an artist. Sin- 
cerity, personal and moral courage, intuitive 
possession of creative ideas expressed 

Examples of 

with intrepidity and enforced with character 

portrayal. 

dauntless will, nerves of steel, and a 
steadfast mind were the invisible traits which 
were known by their outcome in action to all 
men, but were themselves depicted by the seer 
who beheld motives and characteristics apart 
from their outward expression. When George 
S. Hilliard took up the character of another 
military man, General Taylor, there was a sim- 
ilar representation of those qualities which made 
him great to his eulogist ; " genius and courage 
in battle, humane ministration when it was over, 
self-reliance, consciousness of strength, a stony 
will, an iron purpose, a reanimating spirit, ■ the 
rock of the battle-field,' " — all these are sketched 
with a boldness that makes the reader see the 
man plainer than on canvas : for there the sturdy 
face and the regulation uniform only are visi- 
ble, and these in the one mood of repose. No 
one knows better than the genuine artist the 
limitations of pencil and brush. His battle- 
fields are the scenes of one particular instant 
7 



98 The Occasional Address 

in the long day's fighting, and of necessity are 
the work of memory and imagination, repro- 
ducing a snap-shot of impression. What could 
a clicking camera on the field of battle have 
accomplished in comparison with Victor Hugo's 
word-picturing of the great conflict of the na- 
tions at Waterloo, or with Carlyle's description 
of Torgau, Liegnitz, or Hohenfriedberg, in the 
second Silesian War ? 

Portraiture is not more satisfactory. Paint- 
ing is an art which may disclose something of 
temper and character, but what portrait can 
compete with a well-written biography in giv- 
ing the sum and substance of a life? Read, for 
example, those four sketches which Charles 
Sumner made of his four friends, Pickering, 
Story, Allston, and Channing, and then study 
their portraits to see which will give the better 
conception of character. Or what more sug- 
gestive studies of the statesmen of his time can 
be found than the memorial addresses which 
the late Senator Anthony made in Congress as 
one after another of his peers dropped away ? 
No face is so familiar to all Americans as that 
of Washington, but it remained for Edward 



The Discussion 99 

Everett to set forth traits which all the can- 
vases together do not reveal. The same may 
be said of Lincoln when some master hand and 
pen shall gather into one harmonious and pro- 
portionate estimate the hundreds of sketches 
which have been made from as many points of 
view. 

It may be conceded, then, that the occasional 
orator has the best medium at his command 
for the representation and reproduc- words as 
tion of the immaterial and elusive media, 

elements with which it is his privilege to deal 
on public occasions. The province is shared 
only by the biographer, and by him in a differ- 
ent way and very often with a different result. 
For it is the eulogist's business to portray the 
daily deeds and abiding principles in such a 
manner as to inspire all who listen with a desire 
to imitate the noble example which has been 
set before them. The precept is as old as 
Isocrates's time : " If you emulate a man's fame, 
copy his actions." The impulse may be slight 
and the impression trifling, but such exposition 
of the best in human nature and of its possi- 
bilities may be one of the shaping forces of 



ioo The Occasional Address 

character for some impressible listener. The 
jar is slight and the angle of deflection is small 
when a train is turned aside from the line on 
which it has been running, but the ultimate 
divergence may be as wide apart as from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific. It is not improbable 
that some person who heard Blaine's eulogy on 
Garfield was diverted from selfish political am- 
bition to the higher aspiration for a broader 
and better service of country and humanity. 
Certainly none could have heard Curtis's eulogy 
on Wendell Phillips without a thought of the 
grandeur of consecration to a cause which was 
none the less worthy because unpopular, and 
surely not without the impulse to enter upon a 
crusade against evils which are waiting for some 
preacher from Picardy or Clairvaux. 



VII. 

THE CONCLUSION OF AN 
ADDRESS. 

IN some particulars the Peroration is the most 
important division of the discourse. Other 
portions have their special function — to state, 
convince, persuade ; this one has 

Importance 

something of the office of every of the 

other. Each section has been work- 
ing in its own way toward effecting a certain 
result ; this one is to combine the several efforts 
in a final and forcible and brief presentation of 
the whole subject. Therefore, the speaker will 
have strongly in mind his purpose in speaking. 
He is approaching the moment when the result 
he has been aiming at is to be accomplished. 
Towards this, all that has gone before has been 
contributing — the truth to be established, the 
proposition to be proved, the moral to be in- 
culcated, the memory to be renewed and per- 



102 The Occasional Address 

petuated, the new purpose to be instilled, the 
higher level of living to be commended. In 
judicial oratory it would be the verdict to be 
secured ; in deliberative, the vote to be cast or 
the measure to be adopted. 

As a consequence of a clear view of his ob- 
ject, in these final paragraphs the orator will 
also have his subject in mind, all the 

An epitome 

of the more definitely for the full treatment 

discourse. ... TT - 

it has just received. He cannot here 
be oblivious to the general course of the dis- 
cussion — its narration, exposition, and argu- 
ment, nor be unmindful of motives which have 
been addressed for persuasion to action. Thus 
the conclusion becomes an epitome and sum- 
mary of the entire discourse. Accordingly its 
character will be chiefly retrospective, as what 
has preceded it has been prospective. But all 
prospectiveness should be ended by the time 
the peroration is reached. If fresher or better 
thoughts arrive late they will be rigorously 
excluded or crowded back into the body of 
the discourse, possibly to the crowding out 
of less valuable material. For if admitted into 
the peroration their very excellence may ob- 



Conclusion of an Address 103 

literate the memory of much that has taken 
time to speak and pains to hear. Being thus 
retrospective, the peroration will gather into a 
brief space the weight of all that has been said. 
This does not imply repetition, reiteration, and 
consequent prolixity. It is rather an assem- 
bling of comprehensive sentences which shall 
stand for entire sections, like centres of gravity 
representing at a single point the bulk of bodies. 
The formal method of doing this is by re- 
capitulation, enumerating heads and topics, a 
swift survey of the ground gone R eC apituia- 
over. Too much formality, how- tlon# 

ever, will be out of place here. The time has 
passed for statement of plan. Parallel lines of 
exposition and argument, of illustration and 
persuasion, have been previously laid ; they are 
now to converge at one point through which, 
as through strands twisted together, are to pass 
united currents of instruction, conviction, and 
persuasion for final impact and impulse with 
the concentrated force of a hundred paragraphs. 
Therefore the speaker's words will be suggest- 
ive rather than reiterative. It is the place for 
artistic dealing with the spirit of his discourse 



104 The Occasional Address 

rather than with the letter of it. It is the time 
for employing his best skill and his whole 
strength in fusing together conclusions and im- 
pressions, and welding into a single bolt all the 
facts, reasons, and motives which he has been 
marshalling in their proper order. 

This massing of forces for a final impression is 
in accordance with a law of wide application, by 
cumulative wn i cn tne l ast stage of whatever has a 
massing. cumulative movement is its most effi- 
cient stage. Continuous utterance of growing 
thought with stronger reasons, increasing inter- 
est, and augmented feeling, acquires a momen- 
tum analogous to that produced by gravitation. 
Its final velocity and impact should be equal to 
the sum of all the forces that have preceded it, 
accelerated by the sympathy which works to- 
ward a climax in any receptive and responsive 
audience that is fairly treated by a speaker. It 
is also in accord with another law of the human 
intellect which requires that the discussion of 
any subject shall increase in interest as it is 
prolonged. Otherwise there will be nothing to 
counterbalance the inevitable weariness, rest- 
lessness, and drowsiness which the act of listen- 



Conclusion of an Address 105 

ing induces. The spirit of eloquence is pitted 
against the spirit of slumber, with the odds in 
favor of the latter. Doubly fatal is the error 
of reversing the law of cumulation by being 
more interesting at the start than afterward, 
adding to growing weariness of the hearer an 
increasing tiresomeness of the speaker, ending 
in listless, uneasy impatience. For every rea- 
son, then, the orator will see to it that the in- 
terest in his subject and object is deepest at the 
close of his discourse. The chief contributor 
to this will be the condensed force of the entire 
address culminating in an impression as com- 
plete and comprehensive as the limitations of 
language will permit. 

A final excellence in the conclusion is the 
evidence that the speaker knows 

Brevity, and 

when to stop. The conclusion is a stopping at 

,-, . the end. 

place of peril. Few things are more 
exasperating to hearers than to have their ex- 
pectation of the end of a discourse deferred 
when the hearer has led them to believe or 
hope that it is near. The temptation is always 
great to say one thing more, to add a "lastly," 
a " finally," and an " in conclusion," with the 



io6 The Occasional Address 

"single remark in closing." It is a wise man 
who knows exactly when it is flood-tide in his 
speech and can stop before the ebb begins. Of 
one thing he may be sure, that if at this point 
his object has not been accomplished he will 
gain nothing by multiplying words. 

In general, then, the peroration will be rela- 
tively brief and comprehensively suggestive of 
the entire speech. It may be needful to crowd 
it with strong and stirring words appealing to 
lofty motives. And whatever may have been 
the taste of the ancients, the modern audience 
will expect the speaker to stop when he reaches 
his highest level, rather than to keep on until 
he has said his last possible word and tired out 
his last listener. 



PART II. 



QUALITIES OF EXPRESSION. 



107 




I. 



CARDINAL PROCESSES. 



THE fundamental laws which underlie all 
composition manifest themselves in vari- 
ous forms in different kinds of literature, as the 
principles of life and growth in nature reveal 
their activity in divers ways. In like manner 
the creative faculty has one method of pro- 
cedure in historical writing, another in scien- 
tific, and still another in imaginative, or in 
poetic writing. Public address also has its own 
processes of composition, which it shares with 
some, and does not share with other Descriptive, 
departments of literature. With ^"^i^y 
these cardinal processes should go treatment, 
those qualities of style which contribute largely 
to the effectiveness of oral discourse. Differ- 
ing widely as occasional addresses do in their 
author, occasion, purpose, and subject, there 
109 



no The Occasional Address 

may nevertheless be found a predominance 
of descriptive, narrative, and expository treat- 
ment in most of them. Facts are made to tell 
their own story, and traits of character are 
woven into the fabric of eulogy. There may 
be argument at times, but oftener it is a moving 
scene on which succeeding events of a life or 
an age are portrayed, growing in interest and 
power with the years and the decades. The 
narrative is not mere recounting and the de- 
scription mere enumeration. Particulars which 
by themselves are as bare of interest as those 
of an abridged biographical dictionary may 
underlie the eulogy, and annals as dreary as 
those of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle may form 
the substratum of a commemorative discourse ; 
but the compositions themselves may be splen- 
did as Everett's eulogy upon Washington, or 
Curtis's upon Phillips, or Webster's orations at 
Bunker Hill and Plymouth, or Lincoln's epi- 
taphian discourse at Gettysburg, and worthy of 
Pericles's funeral oration over the citizens slain 
in the first year of the Peloponnesian War. 

With the narrative and expository methods 
there may also be combined such forms of 



Cardinal Processes in 

reasoning as may be needed for the conviction 
which must precede persuasion ; but the far- 
ther they are removed from all ap- Appropriate 
pearance of logical formality the argurnenta- 

r to J tive forms. 

more effective will they be. There is 
always some prejudice against the syllogism 
and those scholastic subtleties whose value de- 
pends entirely upon the truth of a premise or 
the honesty of a conclusion. In case, however, 
that reasoning processes must be used, they 
should be of the briefer and plainer sort, easily 
apprehended by people whose sustained atten- 
tion to anything cannot be counted upon : testi- 
mony in its stronger forms, cause and effect, 
the a fortiori so frequently used in the Bible, 
analogies for what they are worth as illumi- 
nators, reduction to a single alternative and to 
the absurd, and, most pleasing of all to an 
audience, the destructive dilemma, between 
whose two horns there is as little choice as 
remains for the prostrate and disarmed mata- 
dore in a bull-fight. Any of these are worth 
more in our day than chains of reasoning which, 
long drawn out, are by no means " linked sweet- 
ness " to the ordinary hearer. To the followers 



ii2 The Occasional Address 

of Chrysippus there is a peculiar delight in the 
Epicheirema and the Sorites' progressive or 
regressive, but the average listener cares little 
whether the syllogistic mood be Cesare, Ca- 
mestres, Festino, or Baroco. Probably he 
would have as much sympathy with the nega- 
tive figure Bocardo as any : " Some syllogisms 
are not regular; But all syllogisms are things 
important ; Therefore, some things important 
are not regular." Or he might prefer Ferison : 
" No truth is without result ; Some truths are 
misunderstood ; Therefore, some things mis- 
understood are not without results," — a conclu- 
sion which is often true in logical processes 
applied to an audience, the result being to 
mystify, rather than convince, and to tire rather 
than persuade. 

More agreeable to an assembly and more 

effective, as well as more creditable to the 

speaker, is the citation of examples, 

Examples r r 

and historical or the drawing of historical parallels, 

parallels. . . it, 

a method of conviction that has been 
employed with great success by the best orators. 
The appeal to similar cases in the past has all 
the weight of a historical precedent. It is a 



Cardinal Processes 113 

fact, and not a thought-process. The record of 
it is in the books, often in the memory of the 
hearer, or if not it has somewhat of the interest 
of a fresh story, and moreover adds something 
of weight and authority to the man who has 
the event in his mind, and who has, further- 
more, the faculty of associating events far re- 
moved from each other in time and place. It 
is an extension of the comparative power which 
finds similes and metaphors to illumine and en- 
force, and at the same time avoids the charge 
of unimaginative minds concerning imaginative 
discourse by dealing with historic events and 
persons. Speaking of our Civil War, Phillips 
said in 1861 : " It finds no parallel nearer than 
that of the Catholic and Huguenot in France, 
or that of the Aristocrat and Republican in 
1790, or of Cromwell and the Irish when victory 
meant extermination. While it lasts it will 
have the same effect on the nation as that war 
between blind loyalty represented by the Stuart 
family, and the free spirit of the English Con- 
stitution, which kept England a second-rate 
power almost a century." 

The difficulty in this method is for the 

8 



ii4 The Occasional Address 

speaker to find parallels sufficiently exact, and 
the danger to the hearer is in not being able 
Limitations to determine at once whether or 
not the conditions of similarity are 
numerous enough to constitute an historical 
identity in the principles involved. But in 
honest hands and with an intelligent audience 
this means of conviction is both effective and 
interesting. How interesting and how effective 
let the tradition of the scene in the Virginia 
House of Burgesses testify, when Patrick Henry 
exclaimed, " Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I. 
his Cromwell." The cry of " Treason, Treason " 
arose on all sides before he could add, " and let 
George the Third profit by their example." 

In giving preference to the simpler and more 
obvious methods of proof and refutation, no 
The simpler slight is intended to the value and 
logical forms. uti Kty of some logical processes, 
when they may be needed, as in judicial and 
deliberative discussion. The plea is instead 
for the easily understood and readily appre- 
hended forms of conviction in demonstrative 
oratory, where the audience expects to be con- 
vinced or, oftener, to have its convictions forti- 



Cardinal Processes 115 

fled and confirmed rather than radically changed 
by the speaker. If, however, this last course 
becomes necessary and possible the orator 
should look over his logical armory with care 
to see if what he learned in the schools has be- 
come rusty with disuse. Above all he will see 
to it that he is not betrayed into the sophistries 
which have always done much to divorce reason- 
ing from rhetoric, and to bring discredit upon 
both the art of thinking and of speaking. 
Always, too, it is to be borne in mind that 
positive proof belongs chiefly to mathematical 
science, and probable proof to everything else, 
and that every hearer has the personal preroga- 
tive of reasonable doubt. Accordingly, that 
form of convincing will often appeal to him 
most effectually which has the least appearance 
of art and of strenuous endeavor to convince ; 
a process of which it may be said once more 
that it is out of harmony with occasional dis- 
course, however useful and essential it may be 
in the courts, in the legislative assembly, and, 
very rarely, in the pulpit. But the reasonable- 
ness that appeals to common sense, and abides 
with the second thought and sober judgment, 



n6 The Occasional Address 

which are sure to assert themselves eventually, 
is always in order. 

It would be possible to say much more with 
reference to conviction, but its methods must 
always be largely a matter of individual taste 
and choice, in which, as in all things relating 
to discourse, the skill of the speaker will show 
itself according to his ability. The test of 
excellence will be in its efficiency, and that 
method of conviction will be best which best 
convinces the particular audience addressed. 
Conviction there must be before per- 

Conviction in . .... . 

order to per- suasion ; that is, if persuasion is a 
part of the orator's purpose here, as 
it always is in judicial and deliberative oratory. 
As all public speech has a purpose to accom- 
plish, it may be taken for granted that as in 
the eulogy and commemorative address there 
is some purpose, so in even the more general 
discourse there is enough of an end to be se- 
cured to demand something of the art of per- 
suasion and its correlative dissuasion. Indeed, 
this is in many cases the object of all other 
forms of composition in the entire discourse, 
as the old rhetoricians asserted. The term 



Cardinal Processes 117 

"persuasion" enters into the definitions of 
Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero, and Quin- 
tilian, and their followers in every age agree 
with these masters. Bacon and Campbell, 
Blair and Whately insist upon this persuasive 
element as essential to public speech. Its ob- 
ject is to direct the opinion and Motives> Iow 
action of people by addressing mo- and hi s h - 
tives which move the popular will. To vote 
for a certain man or measure, to support a 
given policy, to contribute to a specified char- 
ity, are examples of objects to which collective 
or personal action may be directed by persua- 
sion. To be successful it must be shown that 
such a vote, support, or beneficence is practi- 
cable, expedient, desirable, or advantageous. 
These, to be sure, are inferior motives, but they 
are the strongest considerations with many 
persons, and are not without weight with all. 
At least they may be employed as stepping- 
stones to the higher motives. That which is 
reasonable or prudential is strong in commend- 
ation of itself to all who pride themselves upon 
being wise and prudent. However irrational 
and unwise men may be they like to be con- 



n8 The Occasional Address 

sidered as the embodiment of fairness and 
sagacity, and as not much influenced by their 
emotions. Accordingly, an appeal can be more 
openly made to their understanding, reason, 
and judgment than to their sensibilities. 
None the less, however, may these last mo- 
tives be addressed if the appeal be adroitly 
made. They are mighty movers, these emo- 
tions. The love of friends and home and 
country ; the hate of the enemies of these 
sacred things ; the fear of calamity and disas- 
ter to body, to reputation, and to prosperity, 
— these are some of the strongest motives to 
which the speaker may direct the current of 
his thought. The orator who answers to Cato's 
definition of " a good man skilled in speaking " 
will of course keep to the high and noble 
sensibilities, avoiding the lower. However 
degraded a hearer may be he does not feel 
complimented when his revenge, envy, jeal- 
ousy, avarice, and hatred of good are appealed 
to. Even thieves and brigands prefer to have 
their proverbial moiety of honor and their scanty 
chivalry addressed. 

In this appeal to what is best there will be 



Cardinal Processes 119 

a leading up to ethical motives of the highest 
order which are seldom quite absent from any 
person, and are abundant and strong with the 
major part of any audience. The collective 
conscience is often stronger than The collective 
its individual elements when dis- conscience, 
persed and scattered. It is like the sympa- 
thetic motion of an assembly, created by con- 
tiguity and multiplied by propinquity, flam- 
ing as a hundred fagots flame when piled 
together, which apart, by themselves, flicker, 
smoulder, and go out. It is in the assembled 
throng, too, that the conscience of the better 
element stands for that of all, and the speaker 
can afford to address the highest motives of the 
best present. Humanity, philanthrophy, the 
welfare of others, the service of mankind, rev- 
erence of the Creator, gratitude for blessings, 
and a sense of corresponding obligation, culmi- 
nating in devotion and service, — all these are 
considerations which may be presented to 
most persons without fear of repudiation, or 
of apprehension that they will have little effect 
at the time in moving the wills of many. 
Other motives may supplant these subse- 



120 The Occasional Address 

quently, for this the orator cannot be held 
responsible. Only for his hour, and his con- 
tribution to the aggregate sum of influences, 
is he answerable, according to his opportunity 
and his ability. 

Persuasion, then, is in a word the manage- 
ment of moving principles — the powers which 
result in action. To make a man 

Persuasion 

ending in choose one course and abandon an- 

action. 

other, to adhere to this company 
and forsake that one, to vote for this measure 
and against the other, to adopt this policy and 
abjure the opposite, to cultivate integrity, truth, 
sobriety, benevolence, good-will, reverence, loy- 
alty, gratitude, devotion, and to turn away from 
their contraries, — all this and more is the legiti- 
mate object of persuasion, and the highest 
achievement of the man who speaks to his 
fellows. 




II. 

PERSPICUITY. 

IN the foregoing chapters the Oration has 
been considered in its main divisions of In- 
troduction, Statement, Discussion, and Conclu- 
sion, and by reference to its literature the chief 
principles which should govern its composition 
have been illustrated. Meantime, whatever per- 
tains to the style of oratorical expression has 
been purposely deferred, for the reason that 
frame-work construction is better considered by 
itself and apart from what may be termed, in 
relation to it, the outer finish. Moreover, it 
will be observed that what has been Arrangement 

said thus far relates chiefly to the of thought 
' and its ex- 

ordering of thoughts in effective ar- pression. 

ray, and belongs to the earlier stages of the 
orator's work. There is, however, a later pro- 
cess of almost equal importance — some will 



122 The Occasional Address 

say of even greater importance under certain 
conditions. However this may be, of the two 
elements of public address — thought and its 
ultimate expression — the last deserves its own 
share of attention. 

It must be premised at the start that an ex- 
haustive treatment of the qualities belonging 
to oratorical composition would be 

Preliminary 

and element- superfluous for those who have ad- 

ary tra ning. yance( j SQ f ar j n Englfe^ composition 

as to undertake the writing of an extended ora- 
tion. By that time they have become familiar, 
through text-books and instructors, with ele- 
mentary rules and precepts which apply to a 
correct and clear construction of sentences, 
paragraphs, and short compositions of various 
kinds. These fundamental maxims will not of 
course be disregarded in the higher class of 
writing. The offence there would be greater. 
Grammatical errors for instance, like mistakes 
in spelling, are a blemish, in an essay or story, 
intended only for the reviser's eye, but when 
spoken to an audience the mistake is pub- 
lished to hundreds. It is a severe but true 
judgment which some one has pronounced, that 



Perspicuity 123 

while correct speech is no virtue, incorrect 
speech is a crime. 

In public address pronunciation also should 
be included in the above sentence. This is too 
important a matter to be passed over Correct pro . 
without emphasizing the demand nunciaticn. 
that a speaker shall conform to the best 
standards. By reason of diversity and disagree- 
ment among authorities, not the best, many find 
an apology for usages that are more varied than 
defensible. In the schools there is apt to be less 
attention paid to this branch of expression than 
to those which appear in writing and in print, to 
be seen by the instructor or the reader. When 
however, the graduate of school or college meets 
his almost inevitable fate — to speak in public, — 
he will betray the antecedents of his education 
in orthoepy within five minutes, possibly five 
sentences. Correct pronunciation, to be sure, 
is the attainment of years and the concern of a 
lifetime, because good usage is not immutable ; 
but there are those who know what it is in any 
year. Lexicography as a progressive science 
is of great value to the student of spoken lan- 
guage when the orthoepic department of its 



124 The Occasional Address 

vocabularies is trustworthy. Still, there is. a 
choice in dictionaries. Beyond these there is 
also a shade of expression at times which no 
key-words can indicate. On the other hand, 
absolute correctness is not an excellence which 
Americans need to import from abroad. It is 
a virtue which can be cultivated at home, as it 
has been by our best speakers with creditable 
results. Above all, foreign provincialisms and 
local accents ought not to be mistaken for 
standard English, written and spoken. No 
additions are needed to indigenous growths. 

Taking it for granted, then, that the orator 
has passed through the primary stages of 
orthoepy, syntax, and the elemental principles 
of good usage, the immediately following pages 
will discuss some of the features which belong 
particularly to the expression in public of 
thought which has been previously ordered, 
arranged, and written out wholly or in part. 
In doing this it must not be understood that 
what is recommended may not be of value in 
other departments of composition as well. For 
example, the first quality to be commended 
is so important in every kind of writing 



Perspicuity 125 

that to omit its consideration here would be 
a glaring defect. Clearness or perspicuity 
ought not to need commendation to any who 
wish to communicate their thoughts to others ; 
but there are several reasons for believing 
that this quality of style cannot be too often 
recommended. 

Perspicuity as a primary quality of oratorical 
style has its necessity in the essential conditions 
of public speech. On the one side Necessity of 
there is commonly a continuous and clearness, 
progressive utterance ; on the other a listening 
with more or less attention, and with no oppor- 
tunity of requesting a restatement of what has 
escaped notice or baffled understanding. In 
so far as a speaker does not command constant 
attention, or does not make himself clearly 
understood at once, he fails in that degree of 
the purpose for which he is speaking. 

With the reader, as contrasted with the 
hearer, there is always the opportunity of turn- 
ing back upon an obscurity in diction ; but the 
listener must catch the speaker's meaning im- 
mediately, or lose it beyond recall. Therefore, 
Quintilian's precept will bear quoting once 



126 The Occasional Address 

more, to the effect that the audience should not 
merely be able to understand what is said, 
but not be able to misunderstand it. This de- 
gree of perspicuity comes only as the result of 
much painstaking, so varied is the capacity of 
hearers, and so many are the distractions to 
which they are subject. Absolute perfection 
in this quality is as impossible as in others ; but 
the advantage of approaching complete clear- 
ness is greater than similar attainment in some 
other and less essential features of style. 

It should be remarked here that absolute 
clearness is one thing to a cultivated auditory 
Perspicuity anc * another to an uncultivated one. 
and precision. Q r again the technical diction which . 
is perspicuous to a professional audience is far 
from intelligible to laymen, as will be evident 
by a perusal of the following example : 

" He speaks of hyperschene as abundant and gives extinc- 
tion angles for the plagioclase from which he concludes that 
they must be very basic, — ' from labradorite to anorthite. ' Ac- 
cording to him orthoclase only occurs as the large tabular 
phenocrysts, which is certainly not the case with my speci- 
mens." 

Any geologist can render this into intelligible 
English, but not in as few lines without speci- 



Perspicuity 127 

mens at hand. In the next example it may be 
doubted if clearness would have been profitable 
to the patient, while the precision of this state- 
ment must have been fatal if heard by the vic- 
tim : * 

' • This man is an octogenarian suffering from spondylar- 
thritis, mitral regurgitation, oedema and extreme anasarca, 
who had the following semeiography and applied to the hos- 
pital for paracentesis. On August 4th he suffered from bor- 
borygmus, which he attributed to lactic fermentation in the 
jejunum. On August 8th, however, oedema set in with 
dyspnoea suggesting the possibility of a complication in tricus- 
pid insufficiency, or a large serous effusion into the peritoneal 
cavity for which his only chance of relief lies in the operation 
of paracentesis, which will now be performed." 

Clearness of expression is dependent mainly 
upon clearness of thought. A misty concep- 
tion can never be made perspicuous 

. , ■ -, Clear thought 

even by simple words. 1 he vague- helps clear 
ness may be made apparent by them, 
or possibly be reduced somewhat ; but if the 
thought is not definite and distinct the expres- 
sion will not be. Words will not convey more 
than they are charged with. They often have 
a suggestive power, but their representative 
ability at best can never be quite equal to the 
sight of the eyes and the vision of the mind. 



128 The Occasional Address 

Accordingly, these should be clear and strong. 
And the chief labor for perspicuity will be in 
the direction of distinct, exact, and definite 
views of objects and subjects. When these 
views are obtained the difficulty of unambigu- 
ous expression is greatly reduced for those who 
can command a vocabulary of reasonable ful- 
ness. 

If it be asked how this primary clearness 
of thought is to be obtained, there is but one 
concentra- general answer that is applicable 
tionofmind. to a jj sorts f thinkers ; for there 
are those who come to a certain conclusion 
by intuition and quick perception, and others 
again by slow procession of observation and 
reasoning. Patient, concentrated, and interested 
application of the mind is the only process by 
which its first clouded vision of things can be 
clarified. This proceeding has its analogy in 
the sight of the eyes. As soon as one goes 
beyond things familiar, or into dusk and dark- 
ness with familiar objects around him, he must 
gaze long and steadily before he "makes out " 
their substance and form. It is said that a well- 
trained burglar has remarkable powers of this 



Perspicuity 129 

kind in a dark room. The secret of his skill is 
in his patient attention to obscurities, and in 
waiting for such light as may be latent around 
him, in the absence of any other. By a similar 
intentness a vague thought will gradually as- 
sume definiteness, and the truth which was in- 
complete and indistinct will reveal itself clearly 
to the patient watcher. In this time of waiting 
something may be gained by preliminary and 
experimental use of the pen, especially by those 
who do not easily hold a continuous thought- 
process in mind, or prefer to secure each point 
in black and white as it moves on. Any device 
or expedient is commendable which contributes 
to final perspicuity. Among the most service- 
able is the statement to one's self in the plainest 
colloquial terms the writer's apprehension of 
the truth, so far as it has discovered itself to 
him ; or better still, conversation with a friend 
about it, with the additional advantage of ob- 
taining another's views. Daylight and a walk 
in the open air, amid the forms of nature or the 
business of a practical world, are often correc- 
tive of conclusions which have been formed by 
lamplight and in the seclusion of a study. Books 



130 The Occasional Address 

containing permanent values in the clarified 
thoughts of recognized authorities are not to 
be overlooked in the search for clear and defi- 
nite conceptions. But with all these aids to re- 
flection the distinctness of the final product 
will depend upon prolonged fixedness of the 
mind with steadfast gaze upon the growing 
object before it. In proportion as it becomes 
clear to the beholder will he find words to 
make his thought clear to others. 

Still there is a choice in words, and in the 
felicity of choice lies the second element of 
perspicuous perspicuity. This, too, is a relative 
diction. matter according to the intelligence 

of the hearer. It is well to " speak the thoughts 
of the wise in the language of the simple " if it 
will convey such thoughts fully and accurately 
to those who delight in wisdom. Unfortu- 
nately our mother-tongue in its simplest forms 
does not adequately represent high thinking. 
The Northern element in it is good for hearth 
and home thoughts, for sea-going and sword- 
wielding, for enterprise and for empire-making 
— in a word, for action. But the surroundings 
of the Saxon did not favor conquests in the 






Perspicuity 1 3 1 

realm of thought, as did those of the Hellenic 
and Italic races, making these languages vehi- 
cles of that reflection which succeeds primitive 
activity. When people pass from the one mood 
to the other they will repeat the experience of 
civilization, and require the derived rather than 
the home-made word to express their grown-up 
thought. John Bunyan did all that could be 
done with household words in the domain of 
Scriptural truth in its application to the per- 
sonal life. John Milton showed that when these 
same truths are to be treated on loftier planes 
all the legacies are needed which the Anglo- 
Saxon has received from the Mediterranean 
shores and from the Orient. 

In the diversity of attainment which is found 
in the ordinary audience the safer 

Anglo-Saxon 

example is doubtless Bunyan's, es- and Romance 
pecially when Milton's prose is con- 
sidered, which he himself regarded as his 
" left-hand writing." So the impersonal audi- 
tor, who must represent the intellectual centre 
of the audience, will be the speaker's ideal of 
the average man. Him he will address in 
words which will convey with lucidity the 



13 2 The Occasional Address 

thought to be communicated. His knowledge, 
judgment, and good taste will be in demand in 
every case ; also the good sense always to shun a 
foreign word as he would a foreign manner and 
imported accent ; to keep at a distance an 
intrusive provincialism as he would the dialect 
of the mountains or the plains ; also to let the 
obsolete word rest after its usefulness is past 
and its life over, and to decline to introduce a 
new word as he would to present a stranger 
from parts unknown or to pass a coin on which 
no mint had placed its stamp. The one au- 
thority in diction for the speaker, more than 
for all other literary workmen, will be the usage 
of the best of his craft. 

Accordingly, he is open at one more point to 
criticism by his hearers, who are continually 
Po uiar qualifying themselves to be critics of 
criticism. pronunciation, for instance, by hear- 
ing other speakers, by consulting authorities, 
and by discoveries which word-hunters are fre- 
quently publishing in newspapers for every- 
body to read, and to apply to the public 
speaker with the daring of the fish-woman 
toward the Attic orator who misplaced an 



Perspicuity 133 

accent. The diffusion of all kinds of informa- 
tion has made widespread knowledge almost as 
dangerous a thing as the proverbial little ; for 
dispersed acuteness is always skipping here and 
there to prod superior learning at an unguarded 
point. 

In the traditional warfare between perspicu- 
ity and precision the orator will have another 
opportunity to strike a balance be- 

rr J Breadth and 

tween the exactness which requires strength of 

1 • 1 1 phrase. 

a technical, obscure, or condensed 
term, and the less precise but more intelligible 
phrase even though prolix. At one time or 
another he will find that he can make no state- 
ment in ordinary words to which some one may 
not take exception. Young writers are most 
sensitive to such possible captiousness, and fre- 
quently attempt to fortify every statement at 
all points. Hence the temptation to employ 
incontrovertible terms with the risk of incom- 
prehensibility. Better is it to take the other 
risk of being questioned than to be unintelli- 
gible. For with every precaution of exactness 
in the speaker's language, the carping critic 
will find the joints in the harness of mail, or the 



i34 The Occasional Address 

vulnerable heel of Achilles. Therefore, the 
orator who is wise does not take too much 
pains to hedge his statements and position at all 
points, but speaks broadly and boldly, regardless 
of exceptions which may be taken, and of vari- 
ations from general truths for which he has no 
time to make provision. He leaves them to 
those whom they most concern. 

Next to plain English, as tributary to perspi- 
cuity, comes what is called figurative speech. 
, It has several uses, but the element 

Figures for ' 

clearness. j n ft wan ted for lucidity is based 
upon comparison of the less known with the 
well known, of the obscure with the familiar. 
There are various opinions in regard to the use 
of comparisons, but the listener who does not 
clearly apprehend the meaning of a speaker is 
usually grateful for the light which comes from 
a well-chosen simile or metaphor. 

It is not always remembered that the figures 

of comparison are allied to the highest function 

of the mind, the elaborative or dis- 

The compara- ' 

tive faculty. curs ive faculty — the faculty of rela- 
tions whose exercise results in analysis and 
synthesis. For if the mind affirms one thing of 



Perspicuity 135 

another it joins them in synthesis ; if it denies 
one thing of another it separates them in analy- 
sis. Judgment itself is the comparison of two 
notions directly, and reasoning is the compari- 
son of two terms with each other through a 
third, and thus various forms of thought are 
manifestations of the working of the faculty of 
comparison. Accordingly, whenever a figure 
of comparison is used the mind is working in 
the line of its main activity. What makes it 
seem to be out of its usual course and a turning 
aside from it, a trope, is because the skilful and 
pleasing comparison consists in finding the 
identity which exists in things apparently un- 
like in many respects. Ajax and the lion re- 
semble each other in boldness only, but its 
prominence in the beast emphasizes the same 
quality in the man by being made equal or 
identical. The Scipios and thunderbolts are 
alike in the destructive quality only ; but the 
death-dealing element in the men is better un- 
derstood by identification with lightning. 

The one essential for clearness in all compari- 
son is, that what may be called the illuminating 
term be perfectly understood by the hearer, 



136 The Occasional Address 

and that it contain a point of identity, with the 
term to be illustrated, or at least of similarity to 

Theillustra- lt ' ^ OV exam pl e > to HlOSt persons 

ting term. t en years ago it would not have added 
to clearness of statement if it had been said, that 
Macaulay's style is as diaphanous as if it were 
pervaded by the cathode ray, while to affirm 
that it is as clear as daylight is to identify it in 
respect of perspicuousness with what everybody 
accepts as a common symbol of transparency. 
Upon this feature of their familiarity rests the 
marvellous fitness of the similitudes in the gos- 
pel parables of the kingdom. They are all 
from the common stock of daily sights and 
sounds, occupations and emotions of human 
life ; but they throw light upon spiritual truths 
which were obscure to a generation that was 
slow of understanding. 

It is sometimes asked how this faculty of 
comparison can be acquired. One is tempted 
cultivation of to answer : As the gift of imagina- 

comparison. t j on Qr of vers if y i ng> Q f computing 

or of reasoning, or any other inborn power is 
acquired. But after all it may be more of a 
matter of cultivation than of inheritance. 



Perspicuity 137 

When it is remembered that our language is 
a vast fabric of fossil metaphors, over which 
we trip as unconsciously as a child over the 
coal measures beneath the turf, it would seem 
that the comparative faculty belongs in a 
measure to everybody. Making all allowance 
for imitation in speech, the constant use of 
comparison for illustration or emphasis indi- 
cates how almost universal this power is, and 
that in some degree it belongs to all who think 
and speak. But the difference in degree also 
shows that diversity in gift and in cultivation is 
also vast. Much may be done by search for 
similarity in things unlike, by inquiring of every 
object in nature what immaterial truth it typi- 
fies, and of every transaction in human life 
what spiritual process it symbolizes. If these 
similarities and partial identities should then 
be stored away as carefully as the ancients laid 
aside and labelled their commonplaces and their 
topica for future use, or even as our modern 
Emerson posted in note-books his day's incre- 
ment of thought to be torn out and used when 
he needed it, — if such pains were taken with 
the fruits of comparison they might be avail- 



138 The Occasional Address 

able when wanted. The habit of looking for 
identical points in things unlike would be cul- 
tivated, which after all is the main object of 
exercising this faculty. Of course its free and 
certain action in composition, or in the stimu- 
lating moment of extemporaneous speech is a 
most desirable end to be obtained. 

None will be more ready, however, to admit 
the dangers which beset the comparative faculty 

Dangers be- tnan those who pOSSeSS it in a re- 
setting it. markable degree. A great preacher 
of the last generation used to say, that in the 
midst of fervid extemporary discourse, all 
heaven and earth and things under the earth 
crowded images upon his imagination. Out of 
such a motley troop it must have been difficult 
to choose the single metaphor that was both 
pertinent and also in good taste. Indeed there 
is evidence that this last quality is often sacri- 
ficed to the first one, and the dignity of the 
subject is impaired by the inferiority of the 
thing with which it is associated. There may 
occasionally be a necessity for this degrading 
process, as when Milton likens the fallen arch- 
angel Satan to a " toad squat by the ear of 






Perspicuity 139 

Eve " in the character of a seducing tempter. 
Contrast this with the exalting similitude with 
which the poet portrays his nobility as a prince 
of heaven, towering " like Atlas or Teneriffe." 
Nowhere more than in the use of figurative 
language is there need to observe carefully 
the law of eternal fitness. Its range is both 
high and low, but woe to him who does not dis- 
tinguish between similes which make clear, and 
those which degrade a noble thought, or dignify 
an ignoble one. It were better that he use 
plain language, and trust to the hearer's good 
sense, than cause the inevitable discord which 
the listener will instinctively feel between the 
two things compared, if they are not in the 
same plane. The man who illustrated the right 
to find and assimilate other people's ideas was 
more effective than elegant when he remarked, 
" I eat turkey : I do not turn into turkey, the 
turkey turns into me." This is good enough 
for plagiarism, but somewhat below the grade 
of that process by which thoughts are gathered 
and assimilated as Chaucer and Shakespeare 
would have conducted the operation. Still, 
perhaps, it is as apt a resemblance as can be 



Ho The Occasional Address 

found to illustrate assimilation as distinguished 
from appropriation. 

The minting of new coin out of old, stamp- 
ing it with a new image and superscription ; 
and out of discarded materials the manufac- 
ture of new paper, bearing the transformer's own 
water-mark, are other illustrations of mental 
assimilating processes. In these comparisons 
the mixed character of the original material 
and the high excellence of the final product 
exhibit a growth toward perfection which saves 
the degradation of the first part from appear- 
ing in the last, and leaves an agreeable impres- 
sion in the end. 

Thus far the figure of speech has been con- 
sidered as an aid to perspicuity. It has other 
uses which may be explained in their 

Illustration of j r 

the first use proper place; but its first use and 

of figures. . . 

chief value is to throw light upon 
the less known by reflection from the well 
known, as the nature of the spiritual and im- 
material kingdom of truth is made plain in the 
Bible by comparisons with the kingdoms of 
nature and life, with which every one is familiar. 
The good life, like the good tree, is known by 



Perspicuity 141 

its fruit. The power of a germ-truth is like the 
ferment of yeast. The implanting of evil 
among the good, like tares sown while men 
slept. Wisdom is like a treasure hid in a field, 
to be bought at any cost. Seeing the truth in 
the familiar instance, the hearer admits it in the 
unfamiliar as soon as the point of identity 
which exists between them is shown. 

The chief caution to be observed in the use 
of illustrative figures for clearness is, that they 
should be employed only when obscurity or 
abstruseness of thought requires them. They 
should never be used to explain obscurity of 
language, when the same pains that are taken 
to find an illustration would make expression 
plain and clear by appropriate words properly 
arranged. 



III. 

ENERGY. 

A SPEAKER'S expression of his thought 
should always be readily intelligible, but 
at times it should have added to its perspicuity 
a quality which has been called by 

Force added • a • i 

to perspi- many names since Aristotle termed 
cmty. j t Energy. Force, strength, vigor, 

vivacity, power, have represented so many dif- 
ferent notions of what an oration should have 
besides clearness. Some of these terms, the 
lexicographers will say, belong only to the mind 
and not to its product, while others denote 
partial activity ; but in spite of verbal, distinc- 
tions it is possible that the Stagirite's energeia — 
action, as distinguished from exis — habit, more 
nearly represents what the orator must add to 
perspicuity, if he would be effective. For while 
the habitual speech must be clear, the occasional 
142 



Energy 143 

action in it will be energetic and emphatic. If 
this last word were not usually restricted to 
syllables, words, and single sentences, it would 
express more nearly than any other the stress 
which is placed upon the more important pas- 
sages of an oration. There is, of course, the 
energetic habit of any orator who rises above 
the monotony of didactic lecturing ; but higher 
than this upper level should rise at times the 
forceful assertion and the irresistible appeal 
which mark the highest attainment of speech. 
It will be designated here by one and another 
of the above-mentioned names, but the quality 
itself will be readily understood by all who 
have recognized it in the true orator as 
emphatic. 

It will be admitted that the general tone of 
an oration should be energetic as distinguished 
from didactic moderation. Even the D 

Pervasive 

information which is conveyed by nar- energy, 
rative and exposition will not be in the style of 
a historical or scientific lecture. It will have 
an interest and a movement which will compel 
attention, such as is given to a lecturer often 
by constraint. On the other hand, the speaker 



H4 The Occasional Address 

will not give all his strength to narration, ex- 
position, or even to argumentation. Vivacity, 
rapidity, and solidity will be in place here, lend- 
ing variety to delivery, and affording relief to 
the hearer ; but emphatic energy will be re- 
served for its own occasional stages in the pro- 
gress of discourse. What and where these 
stages are, will be determined by the nature of 
the oration and the good sense of the speaker. 
In general it may be said, that they will be at 
the close of each main division if, as it ought, 
the treatment of the several topics is climac- 
teric. Moreover, the same law of climax will 
prevail in the succession of emphatic utterances 
until the end of the discourse is reached, and 
the final and strongest paragraph is pronounced 
in the peroration. 

Such occasional emphasis also contributes 

variety to discourse. If a continuous energy 

is put forth the effect will be a 

Emphasis. 

monotony as tiresome as a uniform 
indifference of manner. For this reason it has 
been sometimes recommended that the speaker 
do not try to do his best in every passage, but 
purposely drop to a lower level in places. A 



Energy 145 

better suggestion is that he secure variety by 
carefully diversifying his composition, bestow- 
ing as much pains upon subordinate portions 
to make them interesting as upon the higher 
flights to make them effective. Variety does 
not necessitate inferiority. The very fervor of 
the emphatic passage may hide defects which 
would be apparent in moderate discourse. It 
was one of the maxims of a certain popular 
lecturer that poverty of thought could some- 
times be compensated by energy of delivery. 
As a rule, however, he did not attempt to make 
a dead level of his utterances by filling the 
valleys with noise, any more than by bringing 
the mountain-tops low with indifferent elocu- 
tion. The true orator sees the same necessity 
of diversity in speech as in the landscape, if he 
would excite interest and retain the attention 
of his hearers. An occasional emphasis of 
energy, then, being admitted, the methods of 
putting it forth may profitably be considered. 

With the speaker, as distinguished from the 
writer, his manner will be the main p erson ai 
exponent of energy and emphasis. force * 

Where the writer must rely upon words and 



H 6 The Occasional Address 

their arrangement, the earnest orator can give 
intensity to simple, or even ineffective, diction 
by stress of voice. The truth of this is often 
exemplified in the report of a speech into 
which the speaker threw his whole soul in de- 
livery but whose words in print move no one. 
Much of the oratory which tradition has clothed 
with great celebrity has lost the power in print 
that it had on the lips of eloquence incarnate. 
The philippics no longer fulmine ; the record 
of the apostolic sermon does not convert thou- 
sands ; the printed reply to Hayne does not 
hold listeners breathless when it is read. The 
energy which is action, divine and godlike, is 
gone. Its absence is as painfully evident as its 
presence was once powerfully felt. It may 
read well, in spite of the old dictum, but it was 
better spoken, a hundred times better. There- 
fore the energy which is most effective in an 
oration will be that of the living, speaking man, 
in his voice and gesture, and in that earnest- 
ness of personal conviction and feeling which 
produce their counterpart in others. No better 
definition of such energy has ever been given 
than in Webster's famous characterization of 



Energy 147 

true eloquence in his eulogy upon Adams 
and Jefferson. Every orator who would move 
an audience should have it by heart. Without 
the qualities there specified " labor and learn- 
ing are in vain." With them, as primary condi- 
tions of effective speech, are associated certain 
tributary factors which add much to effective- 
ness. The natural orator is none the less 
efficient for being also a trained writer. Simple 
speech vigorously uttered is not of necessity as 
availing as skilled diction pronounced with 
equal energy. Accordingly the speaker will 
rely somewhat upon the words he uses as well 
as upon the emphasis he gives to important 
passages of his discourse. 

For forcing a truth upon the average Eng- 
lish-speaking hearer no diction can compare 
with the Anglo-Saxon, provided 

° Strong words. 

that the thought be not philosoph- 
ical, scientific, or abstruse. If it is, there will 
be no call for it in demonstrative oratory, which 
moves upon planes of common sense, and deals 
with ordinary men and facts, motives and prin- 
ciples. On such levels the language of every- 
day life affords the most unobstructed channel 



148 The Occasional Address 

for the communication of ideas. No one mis- 
understands it or has to think twice to com- 
prehend it. It conveys the thought without 
diverting attention to the messenger. It does 
this instantly. Great strength lies in its words. 
They were born of a strong race ; used by 
fighting men, hardy explorers, doughty con- 
querors, enterprising settlers. Their words 
stood for deeds rather than thoughts, for feel- 
ing more than for contemplation. Therefore 
they are eminently useful in stirring those emo- 
tions which, more than thoughts, determine 
the language of the orator whose purpose is to 
evoke impulses in others which shall end in 
right action. For it is the immediate effect 
that he is seeking, and directness in language is 
a principal means to this end. When he is 
most in earnest and most energetic he will use 
them most. He will not employ the word 
" conflagration " when his house is afire, nor 
" arrest " to stop the thief running down the 
street. In like manner the speaker who wishes 
his hearers to give their money, their 
' influence, efforts, or themselves to 
help the cause which he is advocating will not 



Energy 149 

" solicit contributions." If he desires to im- 
press them profoundly and permanently with 
the lesson of a character or occasion he will not 
" recommend a favorable consideration of the 
instruction afforded by the subject we have 
been contemplating." He will find shorter and 
stronger words than these — words that strike 
straight to the head and heart, stir the soul 
and start the will. 

Not that there is no use for the more deliber- 
ate and lingering word at times. Not every 
man or every audience can all at Romance 
once be roused. There is a deliber- words. 

ate energy and force in the slower movement 
of the Romance derivatives, which like laggard 
tides carry their meaning slowly but surely, so 
slowly that they make time for the sluggish 
mind to apprehend the drift of thought as they 
roll leisurely along. They are doing their work 
in bringing reflection and conviction gradually 
up to the point of resolution and action. But 
when that is reached the time has come for 
short, strong, and forceful words ; and the 
speaker will go back for them to his old home 
in the North fast by the fountains of Urd and 



150 The Occasional Address 

Mimer, of judgment and of wisdom, on the 
shores of the Viking seas. 

In obedience to a kindred law he will also 
employ the specific word for the general term 
specific when he needs to enforce a thought, 
terms. The first t h oug h t i s usually individ- 

ual and specific. It certainly is with the child, 
and with races in their childhood. To the boy 
the elm is the tree which overhangs his home ; 
the genus Ulmus is his later generalization, but 
his quick thought is always of the ancestral 
roof-tree. Nor does he ever get so old and 
philosophic that his mind is not distracted in its 
action when it attempts to include all the in- 
dividuals of a class in one conception. It is 
only a limited, indefinite number at best that he 
can bring together and hold in mind ; and their 
composite image is more or less confused. On 
the other hand, the essential representation of 
the entire class is better afforded by any single 
member of it, accidental differences being un- 
important. Accordingly the orator who wishes 
to make a strong impression in regard to the 
value of reformers, for example, will instance 
the work of Martin Luther rather than all the 



Energy 151 

achievements of the whole class. He will 
name Napoleon for generalship, Washington 
for patriotism, Lincoln for all liberators of the 
oppressed. Always, too, the concrete will stand 
for the abstract, the particular for the general. 
It is the single point that penetrates and not 
the broad surface. Even water is not much 
impressed by a flat stroke. So the things by 
which the hearer is struck and which he retains 
are the definite points rather than the broad 
generalities and abstractions, which it is much 
easier to make than to find their concrete 
embodiment. 

To this topic belongs the use of certain 
figures for emphasis, notably those which put 
for the whole of an object or a class a Figuresfor 
part of it or its associations. The emphasis, 
purse for wealth, gray hairs for age, the bench 
and the bar for judges and advocates, a sail for 
a ship, a sword for war, the pen for literature, 
the city for its inhabitants, marble for a statue, 
and canvas for a portrait, Homer for epic 
poetry, Hampden for heroism, — all these are 
more impressive than the names of the classes 
to which they belong. It would seem easier to 



15 2 The Occasional Address 

pitch upon the part at once than to mention 
the whole. It is not. Generalization becomes 
the habit of advancing years, and the return to 
the specific is going back to one of the gifts of 
childhood, poetic and imaginative, which is 
sometimes lost through lack of use. There is a 
kingdom of truth and power into which the 
mind cannot enter except it become in one 
respect as a little child. The rhetorical inter- 
rogation, exclamation, hyperbole, apostrophe, 
antithesis, and epigram are figures which are 
impressive, but in proportion as they are spar- 
ingly employed. When the thought borders 
upon the inconceivable nothing can be better 
than the exclamatory " how " which no man 
can adequately answer. " How momentous 
this hour ! how tremendous in its consequen- 
ces ! " But because the orator's business is to 
deal with ordinary events, and for the reason 
that extraordinary ones are rare and should 
have hyperbolical phrases reserved for them 
and them alone, he will be frugal in his use of 
these. In close combat with a debatable opin- 
ion the interrogative challenge to his hearers to 
deny his proposition if they can is a strongly 



Energy 153 

emphatic mode of assertion, and lends variety 
and animation to discourse. The speaker should 
always be sure however of the consent of his 
audience to keep silence, every one of them, 
and not make an unexpected and confusing re- 
ply, taking his challenge too literally. Amus- 
ing and embarrassing examples are on record 
of too great presumption in this direction. 

Perhaps the figure best suited to give em- 
phatic force to a thought is the climax. Be- 
ginning with precise and perspicuous 

Climax. 

statement addressed to the under- 
standing of the hearer, the speaker will bring 
it within the circle of the sensibilities and emo- 
tions, employing those words which reach heart 
and soul, strengthening the expression and 
deepening the impression, and quickening the 
onward movement of discourse until it shall 
culminate in the best and strongest he can 
command. Such periodic energy, occurring 
not too often, but closing each important divi- 
sion, has a cumulative force greater than any 
sudden word however incisive, or brief phrase 
however brilliant. It is rather a steady gather- 
ing of power, as a billow gathers it, to hurl the 



154 The Occasional Address 

fulness of its might upon the shore. Such em- 
phasis, accumulated at proper intervals, com- 
ports with the measured dignity of oratorical 
movement, distinguished as it always should 
be from the more versatile progress of the essay 
with its scintillations and pleasant surprises. 
The climax of all preceding climaxes will occur, 
of course, in the peroration, which should leave 
the weight of the entire discourse upon the 
mind and heart of the hearer. It will be by a 
skilful disposition of emphasis, energy, and 
force that this is done. Points are all that the 
speaker has a right to expect will be remem- 
bered or recalled. Pages will be forgotten ; but 
if he has drawn them into concluding points, 
and forced these into minds and hearts, he will 
have accomplished all that can be demanded of 
" winged words." Their power is in the energy 
and personality of him who speeds them like 
arrows from the bow of the mighty. It is an 
instantaneous power, evanescent, or living in 
fading memory. In either case, that which is 
most impressive, or best recalled, will be what- 
ever was most strenuously enforced. As was 
remarked above, an appreciation of the value 



Energy 155 

of becoming and discriminating delivery is 
essential to a right use of energy and emphasis. 
This belongs to another branch of the subject 
to be considered by itself. There must, how- 
ever, be something to emphasize and enforce, 
else oratory becomes declamation, a discourse, 
dull and monotonous, or senseless with sound 
and fury. Accordingly the energetic thought 
of the speaker must precede his forcible and 
emphatic expression. 

There is one phase of energy which is not 
always given the credit that belongs to it, 
namely, its reserves. By this is not Reserves 
meant a lack of force, or even the of P° wer - 
failure to put it forth when its possession is 
evident. It is rather the restraint of power 
somewhat within its utmost limit. It is typi- 
fied by the powerful engine which does its 
work with apparent ease, without strain or jar, 
and is manifestly able to do much more at high 
pressure. There have been speakers who con- 
veyed a similar impression. They were speak- 
ing magnificently, but with apparent ease, 
without straining or ranting, perhaps without 
flights of oratory, while the hearers waited for 



156 The Occasional Address 

the burst of eloquence which they knew was 
possible. Such reserve may or may not be 
satisfactory ; but, all in all, it is preferable to 
the extreme endeavor which indicates that the 
orator has reached his highest point and can go 
no farther without collapse. It may be con- 
stantly wished that the speaker would do his 
best here and there, but his restraint may after 
all be more satisfactory than another man's 
boisterous rant. The listener never knows how 
much is reserved ; on the other hand he some- 
times would like to know what might be done 
at the speaker's best. The subject is a rare 
one, and the occasion also when an orator may 
not find places to exert his utmost power once 
or twice in the course of his address. The 
audience is better pleased when they have had 
at least a glimpse of his highest attainment. 
Still, restraint is better than extravagance. 
Those writers who have made eloquence a vir- 
tue place on a par with temperance and self- 
control the force of will which prevents the 
oration from running into an abstract essay on 
the one hand, or on the other into " an over- 
ornamented prose-poem." To govern a logical 



Energy 157 

propensity, or to restrain a flighty imagination, 
or to curb an impulse to rodomontade may 
require as much moral force as to suppress the 
appetite for any other sort of intoxication. It 
is the same here as in the exercise of all power ; 
it must be done discreetly, fittingly, and with 
nice adjustment to the immediate need. Other- 
wise it becomes ridiculous in its over exercise, 
or inefficient in its failure. 

A kindred form of reserve is the understate- 
ment of a case, which goes with the spirit of 
moderation and fairness. There Moderation 
would appear to be nothing emphatic in statement - 
about it, but it nevertheless sometimes helps the 
speaker's cause more than violent insistence 
upon its last claim. By leaving hearers to 
make a stronger case for him than he has 
urged, is a generosity which is likely to have 
its reward, especially if it take the form of fair- 
ness toward opposing considerations or persons. 
If suggestion goes half-way there is little need 
of exhausting the reserves of language, not to 
say of forestalling the inductive processes of 
hearers, by making the last demand, for they 
will supply what has not been said in their 



i5 8 The Occasional Address 

sense of justice and fair play. Sometimes in 
their bountifulness they will accord more to 
the speaker than he would have asked at the 
utmost. In such an event, and in every case, 
the emphasis which an audience can give to 
his moderate statement far outweighs any 
vehement and extreme assertion that he him- 
self might make. It is the world with Athan- 
asius instead of against him. 






M$4M^M 




f>^fttV^ 


1 :■ ■' .:' '■?-'^:-; 


rSlftJ 



IV. 
ELEGANCE. 

ORAL discourse should always be easily 
and readily apprehended ; sometimes it 
should be forcible in its presentation of em- 
phatic phases of its subject ; it may 
furthermore gratify a love of excel- value of eie- 
lence in literary art which most in- 
telligent hearers possess. Indeed, it would be 
difficult to find a person willing to listen at all 
to a speech of an hour in length who does not 
instinctively know the difference between ele- 
gance and uncouthness. He may not be able 
to say precisely in what this difference consists, 
but he will recognize it, and have his own way 
of stating his impression. There are compo- 
sitions, especially of a poetic nature, both in 
verse and prose, where beauty of diction and 
wealth of imagery are of the first consequence. 
159 



160 The Occasional Address 

They are essential to that aesthetic pleasure 
which is the purpose of such composition. 
But a serious and earnest speech, having a 
definite object to secure in determining con- 
viction, belief, or action, will seek the quality 
of elegance so far only as it will contribute to 
the purpose of the orator. This purpose being 
different in character and in importance at dif- 
ferent times, the degree of elegance sought 
should vary correspondingly ; and while there 
may be occasions too momentous for much of 
it, there will be other occasions when this 
feature of discourse will be both appropriate 
and essential. At such times the speaker will 
ask himself, In what does elegance of composi- 
tion consist? 

His answer will place it, chiefly, in a general 

elevation of tone comporting with the dignity 

of public address upon a topic which 

Elevation of x x L 

toneindis- will of necessity itself be dignified 

course. . 

by reason of the occasion and of the 
character of the audience. Unconsciously he 
will give a corresponding elevation to all that 
is uttered. Not in stilted and bombastic phrase, 
but with such sustained diction as exalted 



Elegance 161 

sentiments require. It is in this adaptation 
of words and sentences to thoughts that ele- 
gance must primarily consist. Without such 
harmony of correspondence an oration might 
become a vulgar harangue. Furthermore, this 
fitness of diction to dignified thought must 
pervade the entire discourse in all its variety 
of expression, the humorous as well as the 
pathetic portions, the narrative as well as the 
argumentative. It will be like the elegance of 
a costly house, in its foundation and its walls, 
in its appointments and its adornments. 

In what particulars this general atmosphere 
of elegance is to be carried out becomes a 
question of varied application. As A ro riate 
all discourse is made up of words and diction, 
their combination, the first recommendation 
must be in regard to the kind of words to be 
used, and also as to the way they are arranged. 
For every object in the material and immaterial 
world there are at least two names, one of 
honor and one of dishonor; for every act a 
verb which exalts or degrades. In poetry the 
first class of words is used, and dignified prose 
should employ a style of its own not inferior. 



1 62 The Occasional Address 

The best word is none too good, since language 
must always lag behind thought and report it 
imperfectly. Among the multitude of words, 
as among throngs of men, there are princes by 
nature and by suffrage, and no decree can make 
even their brethren equal to them in honor or 
in worth. " Man " will always be the highest 
title of a human being, whatever be the quali- 
fying prefix or added limitation — as nobleman, 
gentleman, king or general, priest or poet ; for 
manhood is greater than any sphere of its 
activity. So of every state and order of crea- 
tion ; there is the highest stage and the corre- 
sponding word, instead of which no inferior 
term is admissible in public speech, however 
endurable it may be in colloquial parlance, 
dramatic composition, or familiar correspond- 
ence. 

As with words, so with their arrangement in 
sentences. The best of them may be so un- 
naturally ordered as to lose half their 

Euphonious 

arrangement value. The strong or sonorous word 
may be weakened or smothered by 
its inferiors, and these in turn may gain noth- 
ing by promotion. The laws of rhythm may 



Elegance 163 

be violated and the resonance of a period de- 
stroyed by the misplacing of a syllable. This, 
of course, is no fatal mistake in the direction of 
clearness or force, but if elegance is worth seek- 
ing at all it should be sought diligently. Not 
as mere ornament, but as an essential part of 
harmonious construction for the gratification of 
an artistic sense when this is permissible and 
commendable. On the contrary the accidental 
or deliberate introduction of words that jar 
upon the ear can have for its apology one or 
two reasons only : an intentional discord in the 
thought, to which expression is to correspond ; 
or a harshness of sound designed to serve as a 
relief to long-sustained harmony. But the 
harmony itself ought not to be of the kind, nor 
to be continued so long, as to need a contrast- 
ing crash to awaken hearers from its drowsy in- 
fluences. 

The use of imagery for elegance may be 
mentioned here. The creations of the imagina- 
tion are as welcome to the hearer as Image for 
to the reader, and as effective in the beauty, 
oration as in the poem. The delight of dis- 
covering the connection between suggested 



1 64 The Occasional Address 

similitudes gives the listener a share in the 
speaker's creative processes, besides stimulat- 
ing his attention and arousing his mental 
activities. Sometimes he is started on new 
and kindred lines of thought by a passage 
which has stirred him by its beauty. Again, 
his admiration is won by the power which dis- 
cerns resemblances in things remote from each 
other, and apparently incongruous. It is akin 
to the pleasure which comes from the unex- 
pected in music and painting and sculpture. 

Elegance, however, can never be a matter of 
words, sentences, and figures of speech alone. 
Fitness in Underneath the best expression 
thought. must a i ways H e t he beautiful 
thought, as the inner glory of life is behind 
every outer manifestation of its excellence. 
No choice expression can gild an ugly fact, as 
no euphemism can make disease, or death, or 
crime, a welcome contemplation. On the 
other hand, if the thought be full of health, 
and life, and innocence, it will carry the beauty 
and gladness of these into almost any word 
that can suggest them. Moreover, there is a 
great wealth of words for the things which 



Elegance 165 

bring joy into human life and peace into hu- 
man hearts and prosperity to communities. 
When, therefore, a speaker is discoursing on 
such topics as make for justice and honor, and 
through these happiness, he will find the beauty 
which inheres in his subject growing out into 
visible forms by the law of a life which cannot 
be restrained. It will take on its own form 
and color according to the mind out of which 
it is springing, as flowers take their hues from 
the soil and the clime in which they grow. 
If, united with these natural tastes, there be 
also a perception of the harmonies of propor- 
tion and rhythm, of fitness between sound and 
sense, of correspondence between subject and 
style, between the speaker and his topic, of 
concord between the occasion and the orator, 
and of the sympathy which the audience should 
have with both, the product in speech cannot 
be inelegant any more than it can fail to be 
forcible and clear. 



V. 
ADAPTATION. 

TO the preceding triad of essentials in public 
discourse should be added a fourth, which 
is so comprehensive that it may include not 
only these qualities but other and minor excel- 
lences discussed at length in books 

Adaptation a 

far-reaching upon composition. If but a single 

principle. . . , , 

maxim were to be given to the begin- 
ner, or even the adept in oratory, it should be 
concerning the fitness of things. A trite phrase 
speaks of this as ' ' eternal, ' ' but the word is not 
too strong in its expression of an ultimate and 
universal truth. Exemplifications of it are 
everywhere apparent in the world of animate 
being. It is only in unnatural, artificial, and 
perverted conditions that this law of adapta- 
tion of means to end, of life to its environ- 
ment, of creature to the purpose of its creation 

166 



Adaptation 167 

is violated. In that department of action 
which is known as the communication of 
thought in oral address from man to man, 
from mind to mind, there is unceasing oppor- 
tunity to fulfil the requirements of this law. 
Unfortunately there is equal opportunity to 
transgress it, as is sometimes seen when a 
number of speakers address the same assembly. 
Some will observe the unities and proprieties 
and some will not. Or with both classes there 
will be a partial success and a partial failure, 
notably in the speeches, more or less extempo- 
raneous and ill-considered, which follow ban- 
quets. But in the carefully written oration the 
law of adaptation should be the golden rule of 
the writer: to count those things important 
which make for harmony. 

This is a fundamental principle of every kind 
of composition. It belongs to the poem and 
the essay, to the historical work and 

Congruity of 

the mathematical treatise, to the di- style and 

e 1 11 . subject. 

gest of laws and the romantic story. 
To interchange the style of one with another 
would be like placing the novelist on the bench, 
and setting the mathematician to write poetry. 



1 68 The Occasional Address 

The laws of necessity and common sense permit 
no such harlequinade in everyday affairs, and 
in literature such buffoonery is as short-lived as 
it is amusing. Meantime each department has 
its own proprieties to which any of its perform- 
ances are held, and by which they are judged. 
None are more exposed to this canon of criti- 
cism than the oral address. Any discords are 
sure to be detected by some listener, who 
directly becomes the centre from which con- 
tagious and rapidly spreading judgment pro- 
ceeds. Counter currents may meet it, but they 
as often will be full of added criticism about 
other discords as denials of the first fault. It 
does not require an eminent development of 
acumen to discover an incongruity. Often the 
hearer cannot give the reason for what he has 
felt, as he cannot expose a fallacy in argument 
of which he is sensible. But the discord has 
jarred upon some auditory nerve, or upon 
some aesthetic, moral, or religious sensibility. 
He cannot define or explain it better than he 
can describe the discord which grated upon his 
ear out of the tumult of a symphony. Yet he 
has felt it, and it cannot be beaten out of him 



Adaptation 169 

by saying that the discord is a part of the har- 
mony. Such are the judges which have sat 
upon oratory since one of the people began to 
speak to all the people. 

Therefore the speaking man, as the ancients 
called him, has great need of studying the har- 
monies of thought and subject, of 

Incongruities 

time and place, of the audience and apparent to 

1 . . ■ * xx . audience. 

his own attitude toward them. His 
judge is the multitude, many-minded, many- 
eared, many-tongued. What escapes one will 
be caught by his neighbor, and the third or 
tenth man will detect what eluded the two or 
nine. And the two and nine will hear of it and 
tell of it as their own discovery, through sheer 
mortification that they were not the original 
detectors. On the other hand it should be 
said just here, that commendation is no less 
contagious, and that an audience is often more 
ready to praise a good point than to condemn 
a bad one. Applause is more frequent than 
hisses, even in a political convention. So, also, 
the sense of what is in good taste and what in 
poor is always inherent in the collective hu- 
manity which is assembled to listen to what 



i;o The Occasional Address 

one of its individuals has to say. Its agreement 
with him or its dissent will, in nine cases out of 
ten, be traced to his observance of fitnesses or 
to his disregard and violation of them. What 
are some of the directions in which danger lies? 
The most obvious, though not the most fre- 
quent source of discord, is the unsuitableness 
of a subject to an audience. This 

Unsuitable- 
ness of sub- occurs when some topic is introduced 

which they had no reason to expect. 
There is always a kind of unwritten agreement 
between a speaker and his hearers that the gen- 
eral subject of discussion shall not be offensive 
and that it shall be of common interest. If 
this understanding is violated listeners will take 
their revenge in ways too well known to need 
enumerating. Nor will they put themselves in 
the way of a second surprise. 

A similar danger lies in discussing matters 
unsuited to the occasion. This is the tempta- 
tion lying in wait for those who once a week, 
and year after year, are expected to present 
something fresh and new, or the old truth in a 
new and attractive form, to their Sunday con- 
gregations. When the address is out of the 



Adaptation 171 

usual line its occasional character is sometimes 
urged as an apology for an excursiveness in 
theme which has an element of unexpectedness 
in it, striking the hearers as incongruous and 
out of place. The same is true of an absurd or 
sensational treatment of a well-worn topic. 
The interest which novelty excites is more 
than neutralized by the ridiculous blending 
of the solemn with the ludicrous. A like re- 
vulsion of feeling follows any incompatibility 
between a topic and its treatment. Such dis- 
cussion jars upon that sense of fitness which is 
a part of men's common sense. If this be 
lacking to the person who happens to be the 
speaker, and to a few sympathizers before him, 
it is not wanting to the aggregate of his hearers. 
The average taste of a well-informed audience 
is not far removed from the best standards of 
criticism. 

In this treatment of a theme the speaker will 
also see to it that his diction corresponds to 
the character of his subject. As this correspond- 
is commonly dignified, his language ""^and 
will not be too colloquial, common- theme, 

place, trivial, or diverting. People do not 



17 2 The Occasional Address 

come together in these days for this sort of 
amusement. They can be entertained else- 
where. Here they expect what is becoming. 
Grave questions that are always arising in a re- 
public are not topics to be discussed in the lan- 
guage of the club and the saloon. Dignified 
conversation may be the ideal of the speaker 
in some situations, but he will remember that 
his partner is a multitude and its voice, as of 
many waters, expressing many minds if it could 
be allowed. Some respect is due to numbers, 
and he will unconsciously give to his address 
an elevation correspondingly dignified, if he is 
a man of right instincts. At the same time he 
will assume no cringing attitude by reason of 
the great throng before him. It is after all an 
assemblage of units. It has no higher intellec- 
tual level than that of the ablest person in it, 
except in wider information. Addressing this 
one, the speaker has nothing greater to fear. 
Mind cannot be multiplied by hundreds and 
thus be made colossal, and the orator has no 
reason in the nature of things to fear a thou- 
sand more than he would the best man of the 
thousand. Much stage fright would be ban- 



Adaptation 1 73 

ished if young speakers could bear this in mind, 
while genuine respect might often be increased. 
For, strangely enough, a speaker will boldly 
utter sentiments to a mixed multitude that he 
would be slow to announce in conversation 
with some eminent person whom he discovers 
in its ranks. His consolation and encourage- 
ment is that he is talking to the average hearer. 
It is also safer to address the best intellect in 
language which this average hearer can com- 
prehend. 

In this instance of adaptation certain sugges- 
tions about style will be in place. Simplicity, 
for example, is not inconsistent with Simplicity of 
the dignity that has been mentioned. style * 

Clear, straightforward sentences are desirable, 
out of which parenthetic thoughts have been 
weeded. These may be transplanted as sepa- 
rate propositions in distinct sentences if worth 
keeping and enlarging. Short sentences also 
are easier retained than long ones, and loose 
are understood more immediately than periodic. 
These last have an advantage, however, in re- 
taining attention to their close, and thus culti- 
vating the habit of listening — a habit and a 



174 The Occasional Address 

power which is being lost by this much-read- 
ing, impatient generation. Attention, like 
memory, is becoming one of the lost arts, a 
gift and a talent which died with the fathers 
and went out with the hourglass. The long 
sentence, also, provided it is clear, as it may 
be, carries a weight of accumulated energy in 
its culminating forms that cannot be dispensed 
with in the climaxes of eloquence. 

There is one element which this practical age 
is trying to eliminate from oratory in order to 
The dramatic bring it into correspondence with its 
element. own hard-and -fast theories. Or, per- 
haps, taking its cue from the British Parlia- 
ment, as it gets other fashions from across the 
water, it attempts to lower the standards of 
genuine eloquence, as they have been lowered 
to business talk in that body where the delib- 
erative oratory of the eighteenth century 
survives only in tradition, or in exceptional 
instances so notable as to need no mention. 
Through fear of being considered dramatic, an 
essential part of the best speaking is con- 
demned to exile by legislators ; and in this con- 
demnation the highest attainments of the best 



Adaptation 175 

orators the world has known, are incidentally 
or impliedly included, and their influence on 
succeeding oratory deprecated. A slight knowl- 
edge of those periods when the drama has been 
succeeded by genuine eloquence ought to show 
the fallacy and the folly of such objections. 
It was the dramatic spirit passing into the ora- 
tory of the Greek play before the speech aban- 
doned the drama — the spirit which it took with 
itself later into the courts and the agora — that 
gave the eloquence of Hellas its power. The 
same gift was conferred by the French drama 
upon the orators of the golden age of Louis 
Fourteenth ; and the Elizabethan dramatists, 
together with Hellenic studies, did as much 
for the giants of the Hanoverian Parliament in 
the last century. In general it may be asserted, 
that in any age where oratory has risen above 
the discussions of the board of trade, the dra- 
matic element has been present with its own 
incomparable power. This is by no means 
saying that an orator must be an actor in the 
common acceptation of the term. But he 
must have what Demosthenes called the first, 
second, and third requisite- of eloquence — ac- 



1 76 The Occasional Address 

tion, in its proper degree resembling the energy 
and appropriate activity of the dramatic inter- 
preter and impersonator. Other things being 
equal, the more of the dramatic spirit that in- 
spires a speaker the more effective will he be. 
Such a spirit will compel the speaker to give 
his utmost expression to thought, knowing as 
he must that he cannot fully represent any idea 
in all its possibilities by words alone. The eye 
sees more than the ear hears. Therefore it 
also must be addressed. But the dramatic 
forms of language, the interrogations, the rare 
exclamation, the reply, the appeal, the affirma- 
tion, and the denial are all tokens and out- 
growths of that spirit of action and animation 
without which oratory becomes the dullest of 
recitative. Therefore the dramatic spirit should 
be cultivated; for it will be in accord with the 
best eloquence, and will lend something to the 
most commonplace utterances. Like a good 
manner in other things, it is everything to 
some people and something to everybody. It 
is more to the insensible than they can be con- 
scious of, and for this reason should be encour- 
aged. One thing is certain, true eloquence 



Adaptation 177 

will never be attained by studying restraint, by 
suppressing the natural exuberance of youthful 
enthusiasm, and by imitating models of dull 
and prosy uniformity. Men in the next genera- 
tion will not be moved by orators who, with 
hands in pockets, mutter, in monotone, senti- 
ments that may be apples of gold, but are 
offered in baskets of silver. 

Besides the forms of adaptation thus far 
mentioned, there is another not less important 
of which a speaker might seem to Naturalness 
need no reminder, namely, congruity*" 161 " 11 *** 1011, 
between his subject, his audience, his oratorical 
methods, and himself. In other words he is 
to adapt himself to these in his own way, to 
cultivate naturalness and bide the result. If 
he succeeds it will be because he has been true 
to himself ; if he fails it will not be because he 
neglected to imitate some greater orator. This 
orator did not make himself famous by imita- 
tion of one greater still. Whatever of distinc- 
tion he has, represents the difference between 
himself and all others. It is his own individu- 
ality improved and raised to the highest power. 
So, in its own degree, must the personality of 



178 The Occasional Address 

every speaker be his own key to success. The 
secret of cultivating one's originality is the ab- 
sence of self-consciousness, which is secured by 
profound absorption in the subject. One may 
greatly admire another man's way of discussing 
an interesting question in a heated debate, or 
of managing a dispute which comes perilously 
near to blows ; but when he himself is in the 
quarrel he will conduct it in his own way, 
good or poor. There is no self-consciousness 
then. His style is his own and has no affec- 
tation in it. But the same man will sit down 
to compose a speech, perhaps on the very issue 
about which he has been hotly contentious, and 
will begin to think how Webster, or Sumner, 
or Phillips would have treated the matter, and 
forthwith he attempts to adopt the methods of 
one of these, or possibly of all three at once. 
The attempt is the limit of his execution. 
Clever parodies of verse and travesties of prose 
have been made which preserve the caricature 
which makes one laugh, but unfortunately 
serious imitation has the same effect, though 
undesigned. In so far as the speaker follows 
the proclivity of the ape he obtains the ape's 



Adaptation 1 79 

reward of laughter at his grave and serious 
mimicry. With this tribute also goes the sen- 
timent that he ought to know better, and be 
himself or be nobody. Better be a nonentity 
than a shadow. No man has arrived at the 
years of discretion who may not know, if he 
will, whether there is anything of his own 
worth cultivating. If there is, it is a waste of 
time and labor to import, or try to smuggle in, 
the manner of another. For after all it is noth- 
ing but the manner that can be copied. Abili- 
ties are inalienable possessions, and naught but 
their methods of exhibition can be appropriated. 
To clothe moderate capacities in the garments 
of genius suggests the single idea of misfit, of 
which the illustration is as old as the fable of 
the lion's skin from out whose shaggy terror 
proceeded nothing more terrific than a bray. 

If, however, the speaker can determine to be 
natural, that is, to make the best of such ca- 
pacities as he possesses in the largest 

^ Personality 

degree, he will arrive the earlier at the condition 

. . ., of success. 

such eminence as is possible to him. 

Certain it is, he will not arrive by any other 

road. Moreover, it will be his easiest road ; 



180 The Occasional Address 

for there is a bent and grain in every nature 
which it is easy to follow. To cross it may be 
a waste of well-meant effort. With the man of 
strong logical powers the ambition to excel in 
works of the imagination is commendable but 
unwise. The poet may wish that reasons were 
as natural to him as rhyme, and still waste half 
a lifetime in studying syllogisms. So an ora- 
tor, naturally logical, may aspire to the emo- 
tional, or if sympathetic to the didactic, or if 
persuasive to the instructive. His business is 
to discover the direction in which he can work 
most easily and naturally, and to go with the 
current of his nature. It may not run parallel 
with his ideal orator's drift, but all the better 
if he cut a fresh channel. Imagine Henry Clay 
trying to confine the broad floods of his elo- 
quence within the deep defiles through which 
Webster's flowed and thundered. Picture 
Abraham Lincoln in an endeavor to mould his 
rugged speech after the Greek models which 
Edward Everett brought from Athens. What 
a figure the self-contained, and therefore mob- 
controlling, Phillips would have made if he had 
imitated the coruscating, impetuous Choate! 






Adaptation 181 

Fancy any one of these condescending to 
adapt methods not his own, or to cultivate 
any talents but those with which he was roy- 
ally endowed. Each one instinctively knew 
which way the grain in his communicative 
nature ran, and he followed it freely, devotedly, 
and successfully. According to his ability, this 
is the condition of every speaker's success, so 
far as the manner of his working is concerned. 
Other and many requisites lie along his path, 
but this is the way in which he is to walk. His 
patient, solitary labor and his public effort are 
both in the one direction of his natural style, 
which Buffo n aptly termed, " the man him- 
self." Therefore in this department of life, as 
in every other, he will be himself. 

No one of course will suppose that " being 
natural" signifies continuing in that state of 
nature which belongs to childhood Natural 
and youth. This is the mistake of oratory, 
those who consider themselves or their friends 
" natural orators." In our present artificial 
systems of instruction much has to be changed 
to restore lost naturalness to the child of nature, 
who remains such from two to three years only 



1 82 The Occasional Address 

according to surroundings. Charles Lamb 
asked in his time, " Is childhood dead ? " and 
it has been said in ours, that infancy and man- 
hood are the two ages now remaining out of 
the original seven. Naturalness is the progress- 
ive attainment of a lifetime. It is training the 
growing faculty of speech, for example, to work 
in its best and freest way, untrammelled by 
the artificialities of primary instruction, and 
emancipated from the self-consciousness of 
subsequent years. It is the perfected nature 
of maturity, as distinguished from that of child- 
hood ; nature in cultivation, not running wild ; 
the naturalness of the fruit-bearing tree, not of 
the wayside dwarf. This is not to be understood 
as overlooking the fact that there have been 
speakers who have moved multitudes by their 
native eloquence. The gift, like that of verse, 
is inborn and cannot be destroyed or repressed 
by lack of culture. On the other hand train- 
ing and cultivation render such talents pre- 
eminently effective, to say nothing of calling 
forth and making useful moderate and some- 
times unsuspected abilities. 

To the attainment of naturalness the studies 



Adaptation 183 

of the orator should be constantly directed. 
Formerly, and for centuries, all Liberal 

study was pursued with this end studies, 
in view. Amidst the division and subdivi- 
sion of curricula in the schools of the present 
day, courses similar to the mediaeval trivium 
and qaadrivium, or to the ancient order of 
instruction, might be selected ; but for the 
speaker, as for the physician, the architect, 
or the engineer, and more even than for these, 
a broad and comprehensive education is the 
best preparation. There is no branch of liter- 
ature, science, or philosophy that may not 
contribute to the enlarged views which the 
demonstrative orator should be able to take 
upon occasion. Of all men he needs a world- 
wide acquaintance with things and men, with 
facts and principles, with theories and laws. 
And if, as a professional man, he is dealing 
daily with the routine of his narrower duty, he 
should at least know where the larger outlook 
may be obtained, and what avenues open into 
fields which he may need to explore upon de- 
mand. Possessed of this knowledge, he will 
be able readily to meet such demand with the 



184 The Occasional Address 

naturalness with which a busy man turns aside 
from his vocation to an avocation, from trade 
or manufacture to a question of literature or 
good government, bringing into the discussion 
the results of a large and instructive experience. 





VI. 

PERSONAL AND ETHICAL 
QUALITIES. 

TO give directions that would be satisfac- 
tory to every writer is as impossible as 
to say how history or biography, a novel or a 
poem, is to be written. All good work is a 
creation and a growth, as difficult to 

° Nature and 

order as the upspringing of a twig art in com- 
position, 
and the subsequent expansion of 

the tree. Thought processes and word-choos- 
ing are innate gifts, which much practice de- 
velops, but never bestows. To cultivate 
thoughtfulness, observation, and reflection, to 
study the words, sentences, and paragraphs of 
the best stylists, does much for the original 
power of thought and expression where it 
exists. But it must be possessed in some en- 
couraging degree. If it is, it will generally 
185 



1 86 The Occasional Address 

manifest itself in both the ability and desire to 
compose. If to these be joined the disposi- 
tion and habit of natural and free communica- 
tion, the way is open to success for the speaker 
who has anything worth telling. Still, it is 
not to be denied, that beyond natural gifts 
and graces, which will find an outlet in their 
own way, there are particular methods that be- 
long to certain classes of composition, the ora- 
tion among them. It is well known that even 
the free spirit of poetry is not beyond the 
assistance of the schools, and that the rambling 
pen of the essayist is helped by the suggestions 
of writers upon rhetoric. By all means, then, 
so organic and orderly a creation as the public 
address should not be entirely independent of 
recommendations, although it should be ex- 
empt from rules that fetter and hamper. 

The qualities which are suggested in this 
chapter have a general character, belonging to 
General what may be regarded as the atmos- 
quaiities. phere of demonstrative discourse, 
and are to be distinguished from the specific 
qualities already mentioned. The former are 
to the latter what the general bearing of the 



Personal and Ethical Qualities 187 

speaker is to his particular methods of address 
and his personal characteristics of expression, 
as distinct from his words and oratorical ac- 
tion. As preliminary to these general qualities 
it will be remembered that among the funda- 
mental conditions of demonstrative speech 
were its unprofessional character; a clear 
understanding of the reason and purpose of 
speaking at all ; the subject in relation to the 
object; the plan, introduction, discussion, and 
peroration. To these elements of structure 
certain features of composition were added, 
tending to make for the ready comprehension, 
by his hearers, of the speaker's message, such 
as clearness and force. These are enumerated 
to make more emphatic the statement that be- 
yond them all are larger attributes of speech 
which cannot be overlooked when the best 
efficiency is to be sought, and the highest and 
most lasting success achieved. 

With these observations in mind the reader 
should have some notion of the 

Variety and 

distinctive character of composition breadth of 

... TT ... treatment. 

in occasional discourse. He will not, 

as in poetry, make expression the main purpose, 



1 88 The Occasional Address 

keeping the theme in comparative subordina- 
tion, unless he intends to compose an epic. 
Nor will he make information and instruction 
through exposition the end of his effort, caring 
little for the manner of conveying truth pro- 
vided it is clearly stated and firmly lodged in 
the hearer's understanding. Instead, he will 
have need of first one and then another method, 
as statement, exposition, or illustration may 
be needed in the progress of his discourse. 
At the same time the statement is not to be 
that of a scientist elucidating the mysteries of 
the siderial heavens or of the great deep, nor 
of the lawyer setting forth his case to a jury, nor 
will his illustrations be made the stock of a 
page, as a poet might make them. Rather he 
is to seize upon what is essential in these pro- 
fessional forms and the spirit of them to incor- 
porate into the unprofessional and occasional 
production, which is unlike any other. His 
statement, therefore, will be clear and intelligi- 
ble, but not too minute and prolix; his argu- 
ment strong, but not too finely drawn; his 
illustration a flashlight rather than the varie- 
gated succession of rainbow tints from a re- 



Personal and Ethical Qualities 189 

volving prism. This strength and breadth of 
treatment in the several kinds of composition 
which will inevitably be required in an oration 
as the most inclusive of all types of literature, 
will also be needed in matters of diction and 
style. In precision, for example, exactness 
will be sought, but not the nicety of the scien- 
tific writer who would write larus instead of 
sea-gull, and goura for pigeon. The popular 
terminology is sufficiently correct for address 
to the people on subjects which concern the 
populace. Such a habit of speech will also 
ensure that perspicuity without which elo- 
quence is useless. Even in the energy of 
speaking there is opportunity to discrimi- 
nate between an impetuous torrent and a 
varied flow like that of a stream which has its 
quiet reaches as well as its rapids and precipi- 
tous falls. 

From these precepts, having a common basis, 
may be gathered the principle lying under- 
neath them all, namely, that breadth 

J Breadth does 

and strength rather than minute ac- not imply 

inaccuracy. 

curacy, niceness, and fineness, should 

prevail in the oral treatment of a theme. This 



190 The Occasional Address 

does not imply or excuse inaccuracy and mis- 
representation and error. Painful precision is 
better than these. It has the merit of a whole- 
some respect for the truth, which itself always 
commands respect. In general, it may be said 
that the handling of a subject before the people 
should be with the broad and positive stroke 
of the scene-painter rather than with the minute 
pencilling of the miniature artist working upon 
ivory. But however strong the stroke designed 
for immediate effect, there must be no faulty 
drawing and impossible perspectives. There 
need be little artistic sense in an audience to 
detect a slanting perpendicular, or an oval 
where there should be a circle. Hearers are 
keen to discover obtuse or acute angles where 
there should be right-angled statements, and 
to find obliquities in a speaker's disposition 
where they looked for fairness and integrity. 
Fallacies and sophistries may pass for a while 
and with one and another, but not forever and 
with all. Lincoln's aphorism will already have 
risen to the reader's lips: " You can fool some 
of the people all the time, all the people some 
of the time, but not all the people all the time. " 



Personal and Ethical Qualities 191 

Accordingly the wise speaker will be upright 
and downright in the method of his speech, 
and also broad and strong in the manner of it. 
He will strike at centres, and let his critics 
take care of circumferences ; at the roots and 
let the branches follow the fortunes of the 
roots. 

There should also be the same definiteness 
in the structure of the discourse. The sections 
of it should be few, but distinct. A Dist inctness 
continuous monologue is unimpres- ofdlvlslon « 
sive; so is minute and multitudinous division 
and subdivision. In neither method is there the 
possibility to make points that will be remem- 
bered. Two or three that can be recalled for 
a week are better than the twenty which are 
forgotten in an hour. Therefore the fabric of 
an oral address ought to be woven in broad 
bands of contrasting color, and not too many 
of them. The hearer will carry them in his 
memory as he cannot an intricate pattern. 
Such simplicity of design is a part of the force 
which should prevail everywhere, and also is in 
accord with the law of economizing the mental 
strain of the hearer. In this way he loses less 



19 2 The Occasional Address 

of what has been offered him than if an elabo- 
rate mosaic had been traced for his comprehen- 
sion or confusion. 

As a natural sequence to this strength and 
breadth of treatment, should follow the quality 
The eiucidat- °f elucidation. This is something 
mg power. more than clearness. It is possible 
to be perspicuous and yet leave the subject in 
a haze. Almost every topic is liable to mis- 
understanding, and much that is erroneous is 
mistaken for truth. What is needed by the 
orator in any case when confusion of right and 
wrong, the expedient and the inexpedient, may 
occur, is the power to clear the mists away, and 
to show things in their true relations. It is the 
larger exercise of perspicuity, and is to the re- 
vealing of affairs what right words are to the 
transmission of thought. How often does it 
happen in assemblies of men who are ostensibly 
seeking the same results, but differ in methods 
advocated, that each speaker adds new compli- 
cations, and increases the general confusion, 
begetting distrust and discouragement. At 
length some speaker with more open vision 
than the rest will send his clear, well-defined 



Personal and Ethical Qualities 193 

conceptions over the turbulent throng, mark- 
ing out the metes and bounds of the subject, 
and straightway the drifting, shifting opinions 
begin to find their own places, and to crystal- 
lize with mathematical regularity. He has 
said, " Let there be light," and there is light 
in the chaos; the waters are divided and dry 
land appears, and day is no longer as the night. 
It was this elucidating power which made Peri- 
cles the commanding orator that he was. Aris- 
tophanes says of him, that " his eloquence 
cleared the social atmosphere as thunder and 
lightning, and stirred up all Greece." He 
brushed away sophisms, he made those things 
important that were important, consigned the 
subordinate to their proper place, and set forth 
the real and proper relations of truth, justice 
and liberty. Such a power, joined with verbal 
power, is the most effective and satisfactory 
that a speaker can possess — to see the truth, 
and to make others see it. To acquire this 
ability is among the possibilities of an ethical 
education. It implies freedom from inher- 
ited or adopted prejudices, with the posses- 
sion of dispassionate judgment, deliberate 



i94 The Occasional Address 

consideration, and something of the prophet's 
vision beyond the veil of immediate surround- 
ings. It is what every speaker should covet 
earnestly as one of the best gifts. His highest 
commendation will be that he makes things 
clear, that he reveals the truth, exposes error 
masquerading in the garb of truth, opens men's 
eyes to deceit, and lets them know on what 
ground they stand. Then if they go wrong 
they go with eyes open ; and it cannot be said 
of him that he has been a blind leader of the 
blind because he would not take pains to see 
and to make them see also. 

Such a revealing touch implies a third quality 
of effectiveness, which may be defined as the 
The finding power of finding and touching the 
power. moral sense of the hearer. It is one 

thing to talk about and around a topic, to look 
at it from a safe and comfortable distance, and 
another thing to make a listener feel that its 
practical lesson is not so much other men's 
business as his own. Unless this conviction 
prevails at the close of a speech, there has been 
a waste of time, or else mere entertainment. 
Immediate action may not be demanded, but 



Personal and Ethical Qualities 195 

immediate impulse should be communicated, 
and the reflective and reformative power set to 
work. It was said of one among a group of 
orators that he excelled the rest " because he 
left his sting in the minds of his hearers." 
The suggestion may not be so pleasant as it is 
expressive, but the speaker who does not leave 
a stimulating or inspiring thought in thought- 
ful minds has left out of his address another of 
its cardinal requisites. 

Such a characteristic, however, requires an- 
other which pertains to the moral constitution, 
and that is courage. It is a remark- courage of 
able topic and a singular audience convictlons - 
where this quality will not be much needed be- 
fore an orator has properly and thoroughly 
handled any theme which is worth bringing be- 
fore the public on the platform in these busy 
days. He will find in such an assembly much 
independent thinking and some scepticism. 
But the last temper which any listener wishes 
to discover in a speaker is timidity, or fear, or 
doubt of his own position. The courage of his 
own convictions is essential to the beginning of 
communicating them to others. Besides this, 



196 The Occasional Address 

there is also a courageous way of doing it. ■ An 
audience sometimes looks like an army in bat- 
tle array against the man who is talking to it. 
Sometimes it is such, silent, sullen, as much on 
the defensive as if it were intrenched in pits 
instead of chairs. It is not respectful and 
temporary silence that can give much boldness 
to an orator who knows that the return fire is 
only an hour distant, to be prolonged indefin- 
itely. His courage should be something that 
will outlast the present moment. Yet for 
this moment he needs a good supply to face 
the dissent, the prejudice, the antagonism, of 
an opposing public sentiment. The great tri- 
umphs of oratory have been in this courageous 
enforcement of an unwelcome message, more 
than in the voicing of the concordant and agree- 
ing opinions of a multitude. So Demosthenes 
spoke to temporizing Athenians ; so Phillips to 
his fellow-citizens, standing by their cotton 
trade ; so Beecher to England, fearing its mills 
would be closed in the cause of freedom. 

Such are some of the essential conditions of 
a speech that is to be effective. They belong 
to its general character, but they are not gen- 



Personal and Ethical Qualities 197 

eral or indefinite in their own. Lesser things 
may be overlooked, but the broad and strong 
lines of construction, clear and satisfactory 
elucidation of the perplexities that gather 
about most subjects, a forcing of truth home 
to the hearers' consideration, and a personal 
courage of conviction and presentation, are 
features which an audience will recognize with 
respect, or miss with dissatisfaction if not con- 
tempt. 

To these must be added whatever of personal 
power the speaker may be endowed with. By 
this power is meant that indefinable personal 
quality which interests, attracts, fas- power, 

cinates, and commands. Many speakers have 
all other endowments but this one. A few 
have it in moderate measure, and fewer still 
have it in such marvellous degree that it covers 
many deficiencies, and makes the possessors for 
the time as princes among their fellow-men. 
It has various names, of which " personal mag- 
netism " is the commonest. But whatever it 
be called, there is no mistaking its presence, 
and no substitution for its absence. To ana- 
lyze it is as impossible as to tabulate the sweet 



198 The Occasional Address 

influences of Pleiades, to weigh the sunshine, 
or to measure the storm. It is an ultimate 
fact, an inheritance, a gift. He who possesses 
a good voice has one of the priceless gifts; a 
good presence is another; reasoning powers, 
imagination, readiness of speech, others still; 
but like the gift of charity among the virtues is 
this personal power, the very spirit and soul of 
eloquence. Sympathy is no doubt its chief 
constituent: for unsympathetic speakers are 
known to have little of this magnetic power. 
It is sure to find expression in sympathetic 
tones which come from the heart rather than 
the head. The same sympathetic quality will 
get into thoughts and words, and find its re- 
sponse in kindred emotions, which in turn will 
react upon the speaker, and communicate them- 
selves like contagion from rank to rank of 
hearers. Yet after the last analysis there is a 
residue of power which cannot be accounted for. 
It is as the mighty remnant which is the con- 
trolling influence holding the balance of power 
the world over, — the little salt in the ocean that 
prevents corruption, the little breeze that pre- 
vents stagnation, the few righteous men who 



Personal and Ethical Qualities 199 

save the city. Such a gift it is that saves some 
speakers from utter failure, or again gives to 
pre-eminent talents their crowning perfection. 
It is the secret of much eloquence which lives 
only in tradition, because its power can never 
be discovered in the record itself of the oratori- 
cal triumphs. Rare as the blooming of the 
aloe, it is known by the following it draws, and 
the admiring crowd around it. No age has 
failed to recognize it when it has appeared, nor 
to pay it the same homage from the beginning 
until now. Other means of enlightening, in- 
structing, and moving the masses have come 
into competition and are doing their work well 
and faithfully, but this one is not yet sup- 
planted. Nothing has hitherto been discov- 
ered to take the place of the personal power 
which the eye, the tongue, and the living, 
speaking presence have over men, to impel 
them to immediate action, or to inspire them 
with noble sentiments. Therefore, those who 
have this gift should cherish it as if it were an 
occult quality and a magician's rod. Those who 
have it only in a small degree may increase it 
by following its evident pointings. By being 



200 The Occasional Address 

sympathetic, interested in the affairs which in- 
terest others, earnest, open minded, and gen- 
erous hearted, voicing the better thoughts of 
men as they themselves would utter them if 
they could, — these are the invisible constitu- 
ents of a power which is behind all supreme 
eloquence. 

Yet great as this gift is, it must be accom- 
panied by what the ancients called the ethical 
The ethical quality, of which they made the 
quality. greatest account as an element of 
power with hearers. For they recognized the 
instinctive sympathy which an assembly has 
with what is right. It may be swayed for a 
short time to the wrong side of a question by 
artful appeal to its ignorance, prejudice, or 
passion, but when the right and the wrong are 
fairly presented the popular conscience springs 
back to the line of truth and equity, and the 
sober thought and the impulse of its better 
sentiment spontaneously applaud the nobler 
utterance. Therefore in the end the ruling 
majority demand right thinking and true speak- 
ing from the orator in whom they are to put 
their trust for counsel in times of perplexity 



Personal and Ethical Qualities 201 

and doubt. They will accept his guidance be- 
cause he represents what is honorable and just. 
To ally himself with this fundamental equity, 
or better still to be true to his own inborn 
sense of it, is the speaker's citadel of power, 
the stronghold of his best reserves. From this 
rock he cannot be permanently driven by in- 
genious arts of adversaries. Around it the 
forces that control opinion will rally in critical 
emergencies. On it the wise speaker will stand 
because it is greater than his own conviction, 
stronger than his words, mightier than his per- 
sonality. These may be mutable, fallible, 
ephemeral. But fundamental truth and justice 
are unchangeable, and in their hold upon men 
are practically constant. To these standards 
they are naturally loyal, and they will involun- 
tarily respond to the man who is true to what 
is best in himself and in them. Herein lies 
the source of his greatest power. 



PART III. 
FORMS OF OCCASIONAL ADDRESS. 



203 



THE EULOGY. 

IN enumerating the methods of discussion ap- 
propriate to demonstrative oratory in a 
former chapter, special mention was made of the 
descriptive and representative modes of por- 
traying character. Examples were 

A primeval 

also cited of memorial and com- form of 

address. 

memorative addresses in which this 
method prevails. Still other and more famous 
memorials of illustrious lives have adorned the 
record of demonstrative oratory from the earli- 
est times. For next to the military harangue, 
before or after a battle, which characterized the 
early eloquence of nations, especially of the 
Greeks from the time of Pisistratus to the close 
of the Persian war, it is probable that the 
panegyric of the dead is the primeval form of 
the occasional address. 

205 



206 The Occasional Address 

Its germ is seen in such a remote fragment 
as David's lament for the first king of Israel 
Hebrew, and his son, slain together on the 

Greek, and , • r p. 1L j ' • • 

Roman mountains of Gilboa; and again in 

panegyric. suc h an apostrophe as that of Demos- 
thenes to the heroes of Marathon and Platea. 
Its later and fuller development is symbolized 
by compositions like the funeral oration of 
Hyperides over Leosthenes and his comrades 
who fell in the Lamian war ; or that of Plato 
and Pericles over those who fell in the first 
battles of the Peloponesian war, if Thucydides 
version of them be correct, as given in the 
second chapter of his history, and in Plato's 
Menexenus. Indeed, these two examples of 
epidictic oratory are pre-eminent among the 
performances of Hellenic speakers. The colos- 
sal majesty of treatment which the subject re- 
ceives at the hands of Pericles is characterized 
by a breadth of view and calmness of judgment 
which forbids idle intrusiveness, and the im- 
pertinence of captious criticism. It towers 
above the distractions of this middle earth in 
the regions of a supernal atmosphere, making 
the reader feel that the orator belonged to an 



The Eulogy 207 

age when it was believed that gods and men 
held converse together. More human, but more 
powerful, is the emotional eulogium of the im- 
passioned Plato, who allied his countrymen to 
their native soil — the nourishing mother of 
heroes, making rival contestants brothers in 
their concord — and devotion to the land which 
bore and reared them, outside of which the 
world was barbarian, but within was to be a 
united family of one Hellenic purpose and 
destiny. To such an order of composition 
must also be referred the panegyrical efforts at 
a contest instituted by Artemisia in honor of 
Mausolus, her husband, at which many of 
Isocrates's pupils contested for the prize which 
Theopompus won. Also Gorgias' " Epitaph- 
ian Oration," a fragment of which constitutes 
all his work now extant, is another example of 
commemorative eulogium. The so-called 
" Funeral Oration " of Demosthenes, by whom- 
soever composed, serves for a type of the 
panegyric, while the better example by Lysias 
and, surpassing all, the exalted and eulogistic 
speeches of Thucydides are a revelation to our 
time, of the height and depth to which Hellenic 



208 The Occasional Address 

speakers carried this branch of demonstrative 
eloquence. Into this tribute of honor to the 
worthy dead they wove broad bands of pa- 
triotism, ancestral pride, national honor, and 
renewed devotion to ruling ideas, meantime 
enriching literature by undying models of com- 
memorative eloquence. 

In a later and Latin age a conspicuous ex- 
ample of this kind of oratory is found in a pane- 
gyric addressed to the Emperor 

Panegyrists oy L 

of imperial. Trajan by Pliny the younger. His 

ism. 

letter to the emperor concerning 
the imperial policy toward Christians is more 
familiar than this " laudation " of royalty to 
its face, in return for the appointment of the 
orator to the governorship of Bythinia. It was 
a time when kings expected to be praised, and 
when it was safer to overdo the matter than to 
fall short. Yet in this case there was evidently 
good sense on both sides, and the minimum 
of flattery is bestowed. Felicitous passages 
abound, and the elegance which was valued in 
a decadent age is not wanting, — an age whose 
decline Pliny's better taste and unquestioned 
authority did much to retard. Looked upon, 



The Eulogy 209 

however, from present levels of self-respecting 
independence, it is easy to pronounce a less 
charitable sentence, and say with a modern 
critic, that this effusion is " a piece of courtly 
flattery, for the fulsomeness of which the only 
defence is the cringing and fawning manners of 
the time." But once more it should be re- 
membered, that the best canons of historical 
criticism make allowance for a man's environ- 
ment, whatever may be the proper judgment 
of absolute right and wrong. It was an age 
when it was customary to address the emperor 
as " Your Eternity." Considering that the 
length of the reigns of Trajan's five predecessors 
averaged less than ten years each, this pane- 
gyric of Pliny's was pitched below the cus- 
tomary tone of court adulation. Moreover, 
the tribute to Trajan's virtue became proverbi- 
ally just two and a half centuries after his 
death. 

Besides the above example there are eulogies 
on the Roman emperors in the third and fourth 
centuries. Their chief value is in the light 
they throw on the literary character of the 
times rather than in their oratorical excellence : 



210 The Occasional Address 

for it was a period of poor taste and subservi- 
ence to despotism and false ideals. The 
authors of any note are Claudius Mamertinus, 
Eumenius, Nazarius, and Latinus Pacatus. 
Less extravagant, and perhaps even better de- 
served than most of these, is Ambrose's eulogy 
upon Gratian and Valentinian, a.d. 392, and 
incidentally upon the decadent glory of an im- 
perialism which ended with Theodosius three 
years later, in so far as the maintenance of the 
full dignity of the Roman name is concerned. 
Other examples of commemorative discourse 
might be cited, and more were delivered than 
were recorded in ages when oratory was 
strongly demonstrative, and when the subjects 
of it were the mighty dead. 

Feudalism was an atmosphere in which the 
growth of panegyric was rank. The king, the 
m feudal pope, and the kaiser, the crusader, 
ages ' the baron, and the liege lord, the 

hermit, the abbot, and the bishop, called forth 
the loyal tribute of preachers who, for the oc- 
casion, were the spokesmen of the people and 
the proclaimers of their allegiance and devo- 
tion. It is, however, after the revival of learn- 



The Eulogy 211 

ing, and in the remarkable age of culture which 
was coeval with the reign of Louis Fourteenth, 
that this form of demonstrative eloquence 
appears as the flower and fruit of antecedent 
literary achievement. The funeral Inthe reign 
orations of Flechier, " the Isocrates ofLouisXIV ' 
of France," are examples whose first oratorical 
triumph was a discourse on the death of the 
Duchess of Montausier, followed by the oration 
upon Turenne. These performances placed 
him on a level with the illustrious trio who 
made the age famous for commemorative elo- 
quence, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Massillon. 
Other examples of his power were the orations 
upon Lamoignon, Queen Maria Theresa, and 
the Chancellor, Le Tellier, to which may be 
added the three volumes of panegyrics of the 
saints. Three contemporaries of Flechier, 
mentioned above, were distinguished for their 
oraisons funebres, Massillon in particular, whose 
eulogy at the obsequies of Louis le Grand be- 
came famous for the simplicity of its opening 
sentence : ' ' Dieu seul est grand, mes amis. 
Other famous panegyrics of his were the 
funeral discourses at the death of the Prince of 



212 The Occasional Address 

Conti, 1709, of the Dauphin, the following year, 
and of the Duchess of Orleans in 1723. 

The memorial discourse reached its highest 
development as literature in the celebrated 
The eioges of eloges of the French Academy. By 

the Academy. virtue of hig office j t faUs tQ the per _ 

manent secretary to pronounce a eulogy after 
the death of one of the members of any of the 
colleges which constitute, after many vicissi- 
tudes, the present National Institute of France. 
In the course of its diversified career notable 
men have been eulogized by others equally 
famous, and since the first Academy was 
founded, in 1635, there has been time to amass 
a literature of the eulogy formidable in its pro- 
portions. Thirty-three years of Condorcet's 
service alone fill two volumes ; Fontenelle con- 
tributes two more, containing the memorial 
addresses for forty-two years of his distin- 
guished secretaryship as an eminent savant. 
Among the illustrious subjects which he com- 
memorated were Malebranche, Leibnitz, New- 
ton, Boerhave, Perrault, treating them with a 
justice which attributed no qualities not pos- 
sessed, and exaggerated none that were. He 



The Eulogy 213 

was content to exhibit the great points in 
every character, and let the small ones alone. 
Equally illustrious are the thirty names em- 
balmed by Louis, and others still by Thomas 
and by D'Alembert, the last of whom delivered 
orations upon the lives and characters of Mas- 
sillon, Boileau, St. Pierre, Bossuet, Cousin, 
Colbert, Montesquieu, and Saint Cyr. Vicq- 
d'Azyr recalls the learning, the labors, and 
the virtues of Duhamel, Bergman, Vergennes, 
Cuvier, Pariset, Mignet, Dubois, and Flourens. 
In all these tributes, differing with different 
eulogists and diverse characters, there will not 
fail to be found the Gallic sense of fitness and 
the adaptation of the discourse to its subject. 
The closing summaries in some of them are 
graphic delineations, answering to Fenelon's 
definition of the eulogy as " vivifying the arts 
and exciting emulation," while they also meet 
Voltaire's designation of it as a " perfume 
reserved for embalming the dead." In this 
place may be cited one or two other estimates 
of what the eulogy should be, notably Mme. 
de GlenhVs, who said that the indirect praise 
is the only one that can make an impression, 



214 The Occasional Address 

having all the force of indirect testimony as 
evidence. Here also it may be well to note 
the distinctions which a discriminating people 
like the French make between the funeral 
discourse, " religious in character," and the 
eulogy, " not so of necessity, but simple in 
style " while the panegyric is " pompous with 
the trappings of a gorgeous rhetoric." 

Sometimes the mania for eulogizing carried 
panegyrists almost as far as a similar enthu- 
siasm drove later Romans when they praised 
" dust and smoke" in Fronto's day; or as 
when Syenesius, a disciple of Hypatia, extolled 
poverty in the fifth century, and Favorinus 
glorified deformity; or as when a thousand 
years after Erasmus wrote a volume in praise 
of folly. Of course there is no reason why 
things may not be eulogized as well as men, 
especially since, as in the case of 

Character the 

subject of abstract virtues, they present no 

eulogy. 

detracting qualifications, and are 
therefore easy and safe to praise. On the 
other hand, the human character, which is the 
result of native endowments and inheritances 
placed in a world of good and evil influences, 



The Eulogy 215 

becomes a more legitimate subject of praise if 
it pass through these creditably and honorably. 
For such attainment and achievement, accord- 
ing to its degree in each instance, there may be 
words of commendation in justice to the de- 
parted, and for an inspiration to the living. 
According to such a general sentiment it is, 
therefore, probable that the eulogy in some of 
its forms — commemorative address, memorial 
sermon, funeral oration, or panegyric — will 
always be recognized as an appropriate tribute 
to be paid to exceptional worth. Whoever 
may be called upon to perform such an office 
will find an abundance of suggestion in direc- 
tions that have been indicated, but by no 
means exhausted, in one of the most interest- 
ing phases of demonstrative speech. 

In regard to the eulogy in Great Britain it 
must be said that while it has had a fair repre- 
sentation in English literature, es- British 
pecially in its ecclesiastical portions, eulogy. 
the nation has provided other memorials for its 
illustrious departed. There has always been a 
reverent recognition of ancestral virtues, mili- 
tary, civil, and domestic, but it has likewise 



216 The Occasional Address 

been tempered with modesty, sound judgment, 
and just criticism. Therefore eminent ex- 
amples of this form of eloquence are com- 
paratively infrequent in English literature. A 
poem, a biographical sketch, or a historical 
digression commemorating exceptional worth, 
are oftener found as mementos of departed 
greatness. Tennyson's " In Memoriam " Mac- 
aulay's " Essay on Milton," Green's chapters 
on Edward the Third, or Wolsey, or Thomas 
Cromwell, are examples of Englishmen's trib- 
utes to their illustrious countrymen. Or in 
deliberative capacity, having offered brief and 
discriminating testimony to the worth of the 
dead, they turn to discuss matters relating to 
the commonweal, and leave memorials to be the 
care of relatives, or place them in the keeping 
of Westminster Abbey. Burke has a brief 
characterization of Sir Joshua Reynolds, end- 
ing with a " Hail and Farewell"; Grattan 
sums up the abilities and talents of Lord Chat- 
ham in a few weighty paragraphs ; Sir James 
Mackintosh performs the same service for the 
memory of Charles James Fox and for George 
Canning. Of the last he said : 



The Eulogy 217 

" He was a man of fine and brilliant genius, of warm affec- 
tions, of a high and generous spirit — a statesman who, at 
home, converted most of his opponents into warm supporters ; 
who, abroad, was the sole hope and trust of all who sought an 
orderly and legal liberty, and who was cut off in the midst of 
vigorous and splendid measures, which, if executed by himself 
or with his own spirit, promised to place his name in the first 
class of rulers, among the founders of lasting peace and the 
guardians of human improvement." 

Such is a moderate and fair encomium upon 
a distinguished parliamentary orator by one of 
his peers. It may stand as a type of the gen- 
eral tenor of British eulogy. With that nation, 
however, this moderation is more effective than 
the extravagant laudation which the orators of 
southern Europe and the East were accustomed 
to bestow upon their heroes, saints, and kings. 
In homiletic and forensic literature can be 
found much commemorative speech that has of 
necessity a local value. Of greater interest to 
the Anglo-Saxon race are the eulogistic crea- 
tions of the English drama, whose exaltation 
of heroes is in the best spirit and the highest 
form of brief encomiastic speech. 

When, however, English literature is trans- 
planted to American soil it begins to take on 
new characteristics. A stimulating climate, a 
large freedom, and a generous hospitality tow- 



218 The Occasional Address 

ard all climes and ages give it at length a 
cosmopolitan receptivity and a wide adaptation. 
Eulogy in ^ * s not afraid to follow French taste 
America. j n inters, nor Greek, nor Roman, 
nor what of Italian or Spanish or German is 
worth absorbing and recreating. Therefore 
so important an element as the eulogistic could 
not escape appropriation by a people which felt 
itself to be the inheritor of treasures that had 
been accumulating in all lands for centuries. 
There was, accordingly, in the early oratory of 
our country an almost boyish frequency of 
reference to classical antiquity. But there was 
also a familiar acquaintance with its literature 
and laws which surpassed that of recent gen- 
erations of educated men, who have so many 
things to learn that they cannot acquire much 
knowledge of any one thing. Among the lit- 
erary acquisitions of the fathers was some idea 
of the proper nature and limits of the eulogy. 

It began with the beginnings of our own lit- 
erature, in a time when all compositions were 
ciencai almost endless in their continuance 
memorials. and f ear f u i fa their solemn tedious- 
ness. Nevertheless they met the demand of a 



The Eulogy 219 

much-enduring and patient-listening people ; as 
is evident from the account that when a 
preacher, being ill, shortened his discourse to 
two and a half hours, one of the brethren 
apologized by saying, " We have a strong 
weakness here in New England that when we 
are speaking we know not how to conclude. 
We make many ends before we end." But it 
should be added that the Sunday sermon was 
the chief entertainment of all the week in 
Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay. 
Accordingly, when a man like John Cotton 
became a subject of panegyric, the performance 
was co-extensive with the industry of a scholar 
who could study twelve consecutive hours each 
day, and " sweeten his mouth with a piece of 
John Calvin before he went to sleep." Upon 
the admirable accomplishments and acquire- 
ments of such a " universal scholar and walk- 
ing library," it is marvellous that his grandson, 
Cotton Mather, of Magnalian prolixity, could 
ever have made an end of his laudation. Judg- 
ing by his customary " longitude in speech," 
as Nathaniel Ward terms it, he must have 
occupied all the hours " from morn till noon, 



220 The Occasional Address 

from noon to dewy eve "in an exposition of 
his ancestor's orthodoxy and his unparalleled 
1 ' gift of continuance. ' ' For a typical and cleri- 
cal eulogy of the time the reader is commended 
to " The Departure and Character of Elijah 
Considered and Improved — after the decease 
of the learned and Very Reverend Cotton 
Mather, D.D. and F.R.S., and Minister of the 
North Church in Boston. By Samuel Mather, 
M.A., Boston, 1726." Of such memorial dis- 
courses on the ministers of New England there 
are twenty octavo volumes extant, and five 
more on the ministers of Boston alone. In 
them may be traced the slow deliverance of 
American thought and expression from the 
painful cramps of seventeenth-century Puri- 
tanism ; but still more evident is its lingering 
tenacity to ways that were both strait and 
angular. Now and then some bolder spirit 
struggles for elbow-room, as when in "A 
Plain Memorative Account of Mr. Thomas 
Symmes " one happens upon a note of slow 
progression as follows: " He thought it was 
high time that our Common Custom of Read- 
ing the line in Singing should be laid aside, be- 



The Eulogy 221 

cause of its very much interrupting the Melody 
and sometimes the Sense, and because the 
Reason of it now ceases, there being plenty of 
Psalm Books." But this is a digression from 
the customary and monotonous " exercising " 
upon the public and private ministrations and 
the circumspect virtues of several generations 
of religious teachers. 

Among the four hundred and forty-three 
commemorative discourses, preserved in the 
Metcalf collection in the library of Brown Uni- 
versity, one name or the other of the following 
pairs stands forth from a great company of for- 
gotten worthies as not yet entirely lost in a fast 
gathering oblivion. Increase Mather is borne 
up by the family name, while Michael Wiggles- 
worth, his subject, will have an immortality of 
his own by reason of his priority as an Ameri- 
can versifier, established during a twenty-years' 
retirement for his health in the West Indies. 
Amid tropical scenes his stern spirit was melted 
into poetic mood, and the long-restrained muse 
of Massachusetts Bay burst forth into the 
ravishing strains of a poem called " The Day 
of Doom," once the most popular verse in 



222 The Occasional Address 

New England. The most cheerful passage in 
it is that in which unbaptized infants are ac- 
corded " the easiest room in hell." In later 
days, Jonathan Edwards, whose theology was 
more fiery than his spirit, memorialized the 
saintly Branierd ; Channing discoursed on 
Worcester, Ware on Prentiss, Stiles on Whit- 
tlesey, Dwight on Goodrich, Onderdonk on 
White, Jarvis on Seabury, Wainwright on 
Duffie, Hobart on Moore, Manning on Estlin, 
Tyng on Milnor, Sears on Allen, Garnet on 
Peabody, Storrs on Park, Doane on Winslow, 
Frothingham on Gay, Park on Stuart, Bacon 
on Dutton, Seabury on White, Coxe on Sea- 
bury, Gano on Snow, Eastburn on Bristol, and 
Woodbridge on Williston. There are others 
among the four hundred and forty pairs re- 
maining equally memorable, but " time would 
fail me to tell of the Gideons and Baraks and 
Samsons, of the Jephthahs, the Davids, the 
Samuels, and the prophets " in the long suc- 
cession of New England worthies. Besides 
these there were eighty-eight Boston ministers 
who have five octavo volumes of commemora- 
tion all to themselves. Some have more than 



The Eulogy 223 

one discourse in their praise : Griswold three, 
Crosswell four, and Channing no less than 
eleven. Eighty-three wives of ministers are 
similarly honored, as they ought to have been, 
not only for sharing their husbands' trials, but 
also for the added trial of clerical husbands, 
themselves sorely tried by parochial infelicities. 
Mather Byles, of loyalist and literary fame, 
friend of Pope and Swift, heads the list with a 
funeral discourse on Anna his wife, taking a 
text from the Epistle to the Philippians, and a 
motto from Boethius's Consolations of Philoso- 
phy. Other worthy women are commemorated 
to the number of one hundred and forty-six in 
this epitaphian collection. Twenty-five vol- 
umes are filled with the memorials of the lesser 
lights of New England, six hundred and forty- 
five in all, classed " Miscellaneous." 

Not in this class by any means are the eulo- 
gies upon colonial magistrates, who ranked 
next to the ministers on one side or 

Eulogies 

the other of them, both orifices be- upon magis- 
trates, 
ing sometimes merged in one per- 
sonage. How important figures they were in 
early colonial days, and even in later, may be 



224 The Occasional Address 

understood by reading Rev. William Cooper's 
discourse on William Tailer, " Lieutenant 
Governor of the Province of Massachusetts 
Bay in New England " — so his title ran in 
1 73 1 ; or Mr. Appleton's on " Lieutenant Gov- 
ernor Spencer Phipps, and Commander-in-chief 
of his Majesty's forces," 1757; or Thomas 
Thacher's on Governor Bowdoin; or Peter 
Thacher's on Governor John Hancock, or on 
Samuel Adams; or Abiel Holmes's (Oliver 
Wendell's father) on Governor Sumner 
(Charles's grandfather), 1799; or President 
Dwight's on Governor Trumbull, 1809. The 
tone of them all is symbolized by the words of 
Buckminster on Governor Sullivan : 

" When I look back upon the successive generations of men 
and see how painfully they have been climbing to the heights 
of temporal grandeur, and observe the little brief authority, 
the panting ambition, the pitiable pride, the wreaths withered 
as soon as plucked, the grave opening under the very chair of 
supreme authority, I am ready to cry, God have mercy on the 
great, and forgive the pride of shortlived man when the naked 
spirit shall stand trembling in thy presence, and it is no longer 
remembered whether it expired on a scaffold or on a throne ! " 

Of course there was due praise for what was 
worthy, but this sentiment underlay all else, as 
became men who feared God more than they 



The Eulogy 225 

feared the king. For the king they had loy- 
alty so long as he was reasonable, and when he 
died he did not lack respectful mention. Ac- 
cordingly, there were four moderate panegyrics 
on George the Second; three also on Queen 
Caroline, four on Frederick, Prince of Wales, 
and two on Princess Charlotte. Encomiums 
on the succeeding Georges would naturally be 
confined to loyalists after 1776, and the tributes 
of the majority be transferred to Washington 
and his successors. The first President was 
eulogized throughout the new nation in at least 
129 sermons which were deemed worthy of pub- 
lication, while the almost simultaneous death of 
Adams and Jefferson called out a multitude of 
addresses upon one or both, and the demise of 
President William Henry Harrison so soon 
after his inauguration elicited another flood of 
addresses, two volumes of which have been 
collected and preserved. Subsequent to the 
death of all the above dignitaries and of others, 
there have been estimates at different times of 
their lives and characters, one of the most cele- 
brated being Edward Everett's famous oration 
upon Washington. 



226 The Occasional Address 

The foregoing outline of eulogistic literature 
might be considered as a qualification upon the 
The eulogy character of demonstrative oratory if 
as literature. ^ were not remembered that, in any 
age, it equalled and sometimes surpassed other 
literary ventures. Compared with early at- 
tempts at historical, biographical, and espe- 
cially poetical composition, it will not suffer. 
Polemical theology and controversy alone 
ranked with it in ability, while falling far be- 
hind it in more attractive elements of composi- 
tion. And as the generations went by, com- 
memorative speech improved with advancing 
literary taste, until in the last fifty years some 
of the best examples in the history of occa- 
sional oratory appear. Everett's oration upon 
Washington has been mentioned as the final 
term in an ascending series, an achievement 
which has not been since surpassed. There is 
abundant reason for calling it the perfect fruit 
of eulogistic speech, which had been ripening 
for two hundred years. 

A brief examination of its origin and charac- 
ter will show why it holds this supreme place 
in our eulogistic literature. First, the writer 



The Eulogy 227 

himself had made demonstrative oratory the 
principal purpose of his literary career. Similar 
achievements had been accomplished 

1 Everett's 

by him with unusual credit, but this eulogy upon 

Washington. 

was his greatest success. Fitted by 
familiarity with the best of classic eloquence, 
himself possessing the spirit of its masters, en- 
dowed with its graces and imbued with patriotic 
zeal for the unity of the nation, whose history 
he knew by heart, and whose founders had but 
just passed from view, as historical eras are com- 
puted, Edward Everett was the man of all men 
to depict the character and virtues of Washing- 
ton. Besides, the subject of his eulogy belonged 
to the entire community of States, and to all 
their inhabitants — a person of whose praises no 
section could tire. Add to this the object of 
the speaker — the purchase of Mount Vernon, to 
which the proceeds of this address, delivered 
without charge, and many times repeated North 
and South and West, contributed over fifty- 
three thousand dollars — ten thousand more 
being added by the earnings of the author's 
pen. The man, the subject, the object, and one 
hundred and fifty occasions conspired to give 



228 The Occasional Address 

this production a prominence which no other 
eulogy has had in all the course of time. There- 
fore it is eminently proper to look for a mo- 
ment at its structure as a work of art. 

The occasion. — Often the anniversary of 
Washington's birthday precluded the need of 
Analysis of an y extended insistence upon the 
the oration, importance of his theme, and accord- 
ingly three lines suffice for the announcement 
of his subject. 

The introduction is proportionably brief in its 
allusion to the recommendation of Congress (in 
1799), " that the people of the United States 
testify their grief for the death of General 
George Washington, by suitable eulogies, ora- 
tions, and discourses." This furnishes an 
opportunity to mention the illustrious orators 
who have preceded him, Fisher Ames, Web- 
ster, and Winthrop, whose performances had 
taken an abiding place in the literature of the 
country, leaving little to be discussed anew. 
Therefore he craves permission to approach a 
familiar subject in a different direction. Thus 
he incidentally arouses a fresh interest in a 
well-worn topic, as has been shown above. 



The Eulogy 229 

A statement follows of what he proposes to 
do, — " to offer some views of the relation of 
Washington, not merely to the United States, 
but to the age in which he lived, and then to 
point out the true nature and foundation and 
distinctive character of his greatness. " Grant 
me, my friends, your candor, your indulgence, 
and your sympathy." 

The narration of Washington's early career 
in border hostilities, the approbation he re- 
ceived in Virginia and Massachusetts, his wait- 
ing in watchful retirement at Mount Vernon 
for his high commission as leader of the colonial 
forces is graphic in an assured certainty which 
marks the master : 

" Years pass by ; the august plan of Providence ripens ; 
the beloved and revered chieftain, aided by his patriotic asso- 
ciates, carries the bleeding country through another seven 
years' war, — hard apprenticeship of freedom, . . . thir- 
teen independent State governments succeed to as many 
Colonies, — peace crowns the work. . . . America takes 
her place in the family of nations." 

With a tribute to his compatriots, among 
whom, however, he was as " fixed and con- 
stant as the Northern Star," he passes directly 
to the first year of his administration as Presi- 



230 The Occasional Address 

dent of the new Union under the Constitution, 
at the age of fifty-seven and in the year 1789. 

The character portrait which he is going to 
paint has a background which the speaker de- 
picts with strong and free hand — the age in 
which he lived, 

" a period," he remarks, "which in many respects stands first 
in the annals of our race for great names, great events, great 
reforms, and the general progress of intelligence, the age of 
wonders in the history of mankind." 

With equal rapidity and precision the orator 
then proceeds to fill in the sketch by grouping 
the mighty men of Europe and the East, and 
enumerating events in the manner of a philo- 
sophic historian from cause to effect, from the 
Sclavonic movements in the steppes of North- 
western Asia and the conquest of Hindoostan, 
to the English victory on the heights of Que- 
bec, and the American triumph at Yorktown ; 
from Peter the Great and Catherine the Second, 
from Clive and Wolfe to him who was greater 
than all, the brightest ornament of an age 
that therefore should be called the Age of 
Washington. 

By comparison he then proceeds to give the 
measure and stature of the man, choosing three 



The Eulogy 231 

standards of estimation which the world has re- 
garded as the greatest of that time — Peter the 
Great, Frederick the Second, and Napoleon. 
The greatness of each he shows was qualified 
by notorious defects, and lacked the symmetry 
which signalizes the character of Washington. 

Emphasis is laid upon this harmonious de- 
velopment of all virtues by asserting that it was 
original, not borrowed, having no illustrious 
example of this kind of excellence to follow in 
a crude age and in a land without great tradi- 
tions and institutions and characters. " Like 
Columbus, Washington and his compatriots 
were compelled to sound their way along un- 
visited coasts of republican government and 
constitutional liberty." He had to be a leader 
with no pioneer breaking the way before him, — 
without precedent or beacon in the ancient or 
modern world to guide him. " I see many who 
deserved well of their country, . . . but I 
behold in the long line no other Washington, 
solitary in his eminence among the great and 
good." 

A definition follows of what this eminence 
consisted in, or rather the admission of inability 



232 The Occasional Address 

to describe that impalpable essence and latent 
power which marks supreme character. Other 
men have confessed to the same inability " to 
paint the sunbeam with a brushful of flake 
white." He falls back on the tradition of " a 
serene dignity which both charmed and awed 
the boldest who approached him." 

An answer is here interposed to the qualify- 
ing and faint praise of those foreign critics who 
deny the crown of genius to Washington, while 
they accord him eminent rank asa u chieftain, 
magistrate, and patriot." If he could conduct 
the nation through the war of the Revolution, 
and the period of no government which fol- 
lowed it, and through his two administrations 
set an example for all future presidents to fol- 
low ; if he could do this without genius, then 
its possession would have been of little conse- 
quence. But so far from being a defect, the 
excellence of his character consists in the ex- 
clusion of inordinately developed traits, which 
usually constitute genius, and destroy the sym- 
metry of a well-rounded character in its per- 
fection of proportion and balance. This ideal, 
to be sure, is one of which the populace has 



The Eulogy 233 

little apprehension, while for prudence, justice, 
modesty, and good sense, it has little admira- 
tion and no great liking. This criticism is then 
made with true Parthian skill to contribute to 
the eulogist's vindication and laudation of his 
subject in the words: " Instead, therefore, of 
being a mark of inferiority, this sublime adjust- 
ment of powers and virtues in the character of 
Washington is in reality its glory." 

A comparison with four military geniuses — 
Alexander, the Duke of Marlborough, and 
Napoleon Bonaparte — strengthens and illus- 
trates the position he has taken on the su- 
premacy of a well-balanced character over 
one-sided though dazzling brilliancy. Folly, 
avarice, and rashness were successively the ruin 
of three men of genius, and ambitious usurpa- 
tion the death of Julius Caesar, the fourth. 
Fontanes, whom Napoleon selected to eulogize 
Washington in France, called him truly " the 
pure, the just, the humane, the unambitious." 
Four words could not have been better chosen, 
though unconsciously, to show that Washing- 
ton was strong where the others were despicably 
weak or unwise. 



234 The Occasional Address 

The conclusion begins with a continuance of 
testimony to his greatness, of which Hamilton 
said, that " the voice of praise would in vain 
endeavor to exalt a name unrivalled in the lists 
of true glory"; and Fox, voicing English 
sentiment, said, " A character of virtues so 
happily tempered by one another, and so 
wholly unalloyed with any vices, is hardly to 
be found on the pages of history." Therefore 
it belongs to Americans to show respect for 
Washington by obedience to his words in the 
Farewell Address exhorting them to preserve 
the Union in its integrity — the hope of the 
Republic. 

An appeal follows which recalls the adjura- 
tion of Demosthenes, remembering Marathon, 
beginning: " No, by the glorious nineteenth of 
April, 1775; by the precious blood of Bunker 
Hill, of Princeton, of Saratoga, of King's 
Mountain, of Yorktown ; by the undying 
spirit of f y6; by the sacred dust enshrined 
at Mount Vernon; by the dear immortal 
memory of Washington, that shame and sor- 
row shall never be." And with a strain of 
prophecy, " that ever, as the twenty-second of 



The Eulogy 235 

February returns, the memory of the greatest 
man of a great age shall be renewed and 
cherished in all the land/' the eulogy, which 
is worthy of its theme, comes to an end. 

To recapitulate its divisions : they are, — In- 
troduction, Statement, Narration, Portraiture, 
Comparison, Main Proposition, Definition, 
Refutation by Contrast, Conclusion. To ap- 
prehend how much hangs upon these points, 
or even upon the preceding outline, the whole 
oration should be read. It will be seen that 
while there have been as eloquent productions, 
even upon less distinguished subjects, none 
have surpassed this one in adaptation to the 
character eulogized and in the classic severity 
and harmonious proportion of treatment. It 
will always stand as another monument to 
Washington, as worthy a memorial as is the 
shaft which perpetuates his memory in the city 
that bears his name. 

There are passages of rare beauty in this 
eulogy which it would be pleasant to note ; but 
such observation must be deferred until minu- 
ter features of commemorative discourse are 
considered. 



236 The Occasional Address 

The Eulogy as a form of demonstrative ora- 
tory might be dropped here, were it not that a 
few other examples would be missed by any- 
one expecting a fair enumeration of the best 
work that has been done in this direction. 
Everett himself, under the modest title of 
" Remarks," gave characterizations of Prescott 
the historian, of Henry Hallam, of Alexander 
von Humboldt, of Rufus Choate, of Washing- 
ton Irving, of Nathan Appleton, Professor 
Felton, Nathan Hale, Josiah Quincy, and 
President Lincoln, and others. More elab- 
orate efforts were pronounced in memory of 
Thomas Dowse, showing what he could do 
with a humble subject; of Daniel Webster, a 
great one; and in the " Vindication of Ameri- 
can Institutions," a broad one; and, at the 
Consecration of the National Cemetery at 
Gettysburg,— an oration in which the heroic 
memories of Marathon are revived once more, 
and the spirit of Hellenic eloquence, always 
latent in this orator, finds an inviting oppor- 
tunity for utterance. 

Amongst the judicial and deliberative 
speeches of Daniel Webster his commemora- 



The Eulogy 237 

tive addresses on Washington, and on Adams 
and Jefferson, show what he could do in 
the direction of demonstrative elo- other 

quence. Robert C. Winthrop, an eulogists, 
occasional orator, and during his active life a 
speaker on almost every public occasion, adds to 
his numerous short addresses longer memorials 
of the life of James Bowdoin, and of Barnas 
Sears, and a eulogy on George Peabody ; while 
his oration at the laying of the corner-stone of 
the national monument to Washington in 1848, 
and another on its completion in 1885, partake 
of the nature of commemorative discourse. His 
frequent brief addresses in memory of one and 
another celebrated man of his time as they 
passed away, are models of their kind in a diffi- 
cult branch of public speech. In the midst of 
forensic labors, such as fall to the fortune of 
few eminent lawyers, Rufus Choate made room 
for eulogies of rare beauty and truth upon 
President William Henry Harrison in Faneuil 
Hall in 1841, and on Daniel Webster before 
the faculty and students of Dartmouth College 
in 1853. 

In addition to those already enumerated 



238 The Occasional Address 

elsewhere may be mentioned among note- 
worthy eulogies, memorial and commemora- 
tive addresses that of George Bancroft upon 
the life and character of Abraham Lincoln, de- 
livered before both Houses of Congress on the 
1 2th of February, 1866; the eulogy of William 
M. Evarts upon William H. Seward ; of James 
G. Blaine upon James A. Garfield ; Senator 
Lamar's tribute to Charles Sumner; William 
C. Bryant's addresses on Cooper, Halleck, and 
Irving; Emerson's memorial of Thoreau ; 
Robert C. Winthrop's of George Peabody; 
Oliver Wendell Holmes's of Motley and 
Emerson; George William Curtis's eulogies 
upon Sumner, Phillips, Bryant, and Lowell; 
Parke Godwin's on Curtis, Edwin Booth, 
Kossuth, Audubon, and Bryant; and others 
by other distinguished men, often in composi- 
tions of equal excellence, until the last orator 
who maintained the high place of the eulogy 
became silent. This was George William 
Curtis, whose eulogies on Charles Sumner, 
James A. Garfield, Wendell Phillips, William 
C. Bryant, and James Russell Lowell are, 
taken together, unsurpassed by any similar 



The Eulogy 239 

number in the entire literature of eulogistic 
speech. 

Judging, then, by recent example it is evi- 
dent, that its day has not passed. Compared 
with judicial and deliberative ora- Permanence 
tory, as they are found in the courts ofthe eulogy - 
and the legislative assemblies of the land, the 
quality of demonstrative speech in its com- 
memorative phase will hold its own. Nor is 
there immediate likelihood that the custom of 
honoring the praiseworthy, and commemorat- 
ing good in human lives, will be discontinued. 
In particular, the acts and character of memor- 
able and distinguished persons will be a subject 
of demonstrative discourse. If, as is usually the 
case when such addresses are delivered, the life 
here has ended, such discourse will assume 
naturally the tone of eulogy. It is the good 
in men's lives that should live after them, and 
it becomes the office of the memorial address 
to drop the evil, the imperfections, the venial 
faults, and to perpetuate the virtues, the noble 
aspirations, and the higher ideals toward which 
endeavor was made in spite of weights which 
dragged, and burdens which bowed down the 



240 The Occasional Address 

spirit. Such eulogy has often been condemned 
as partiality and one-sided unreality; but it 
may be questioned if it is not in harmony with 
that law which tends to slough off the old and 
put on the new, to drop the crude and assume 
the ripening state, to leave that which is tem- 
poral and mortal for the immortal and spiritual. 
To drag up to public gaze the imperfect and 
the incomplete side of a person's life is con- 
trary to this law. The only apology for this 
sort of candor is in cases where the bad pre- 
ponderates, and is to be shown up for admoni- 
tion. But, the subject being a worthy one, it 
is only just that its fair side be presented, as 
one would wish his friend's portrait painted, 
not in a moment of perplexity, trouble, or pas- 
sion, but in an hour of serenity, perhaps of 
gladness or bright anticipation. 

Assuming that so much will be granted for 

the tone of discourse, it may be asked if any 

directions can be gathered from the 

Principles of 

its construe- literature of eulogistic speech for the 

guidance of those who may be called 

to perform this kindly office for one who is 

worthy of it. The first suggestion has been 



The Eulogy 241 

made already concerning fidelity of portraiture. 
It should be faithful indeed, but faithful to the 
best phases of character rather than the worst, 
to the ideal or better thought and sober inten- 
tion and considerate action. 

The next precept that may be gathered from 
the words of great panegyrists is, that the 
main and strong features of character are to be 
emphasized, rather than insignificant traits. 
Common sense dictates such a treatment, but 
its suggestions are not always followed. Then, 
too, the lesser traits are sometimes purposely 
magnified, in order to destroy the due balance 
and proportion of all, which is in effect a falsi- 
fication, as far as it goes. It cannot be called 
idealization, which is making the best of the 
man as he was in the true relation and perspec- 
tive of all his traits. To destroy that relation 
and distort the perspective is worse than noth- 
ing for him who is commemorated. The 
Chinese landscape painting, which puts insig- 
nificant and distant objects in the foreground, 
is neither ideal nor real art. It is simply a 
ridiculous distortion. There is, moreover, in 

everv character a ruling purpose, ambition, or 

16 



242 The Occasional Address 

principle. Around this as a centre of grav- 
ity every other motive revolves at a greater 
or less distance. The entire life and char- 
acter becomes the outgrowth of such a central 
fact. The poise and equipoise of impulse 
and purpose gather about it, and in turn the 
ruling principle becomes the index of a life. 
Therefore it is to be sought and seized upon as 
a key to character. In most men it is some 
form of ambition, according to their natural 
bent. Where there is no sort of ambition 
there will be little to commemorate when life 
is ended. And some ambitions are not worth 
commemorating at all. The memorialist will 
accordingly ask in the beginning, What does 
this completed life stand for ? What cardinal 
and ruling idea does it represent with more or 
less intensity and fulness ? This central prin- 
ciple once determined, it becomes easier to 
range other prominent traits in their proper 
order, so many of them as it may be needful 
to dwell upon, and the rest it may be sufficient 
simply to enumerate. 

It would not be fair to avoid the question 
which is always arising in regard to the treat- 



The Eulogy 243 

ment of disagreeable features and character- 
istics. In full view of what has been said 
already about the universal tendency 

, . re . . e Treatment of 

of nature to throw oft the imperfect defects in 
and the bad, it may nevertheless be 
admitted that some recognition of it, as an 
element with which a conflict was waged, gives 
to the eulogy a flavor of honesty and fairness 
that otherwise might be lacking. Virtues are 
also brought out into stronger relief by their 
propinquity to defects and faults. The diffi- 
culty is always to keep the right relation 
between the evil and the good. Here, as 
everywhere, the taste of the eulogist will be the 
test of his fitness for his task. That it is a 
difficult task any one who undertakes it will 
find before it is finished, unless it be a labor of 
love, admiration, or devotion. But the com- 
pensations may be greater than the labor. In 
any case, the examples of satisfactory achieve- 
ment in this difficult and delicate sphere of 
public address are so many and so instructive 
that the well-informed man need not feel that 
he must pursue an untrodden path. His main 
inquiry will be only as to the direction he is to 



244 The Occasional Address 

take in the particular instance before him, what 
way-marks he is to observe, what points he is 
to linger over and lovingly portray, and what 
ones he can pass lightly by. And at the end 
he will ask, Have I sketched truly and boldly 
the strong features of a completed character, as 
those who knew it best will recall it when the 
future shall eliminate the petty and the imper- 
fect, and leave only the best and the imperish- 
able ? For such is the sentiment of the living 
who remember their dead. The imperfections 
and faults which annoyed and sometimes ex- 
asperated, are forgotten as the oblivious years 
move on, while what was best in life and char- 
acter brightens in blessed remembrance — a re- 
flection perhaps from the radiant cloud on some 
mount of transfiguration in the world beyond. 




II. 

THE COMMEMORATIVE 
ADDRESS. 

DEMONSTRATIVE oratory has for its 
proper subject-matter both persons and 
things. In this last general term may be in- 
cluded a wide range of themes not strictly pro- 
fessional in character. Events im- 

Events and 

portant or memorable, truths of persons com. 

. , , 1 . memorated. 

present value and emphasis, princi- 
ples which may need stating, restating, or 
enforcing, — these all are appropriate topics of 
occasional discourse. Sometimes these two 
branches of demonstrative speech are unavoid- 
ably mingled, as when a person's life is shown 
to be the symbol of some virtue or general 
truth, or again where a far-reaching principle 
is illustrated by pertinent biographical example 
and incident. In this second class of discourse, 
245 



246 The Occasional Address 

however, there is less occasion to commingle 
the personal and the general in large proportions 
of each, and the separation between the two 
becomes distinct. Moreover, the treatment of 
subjects in the general or abstract form will of 
necessity differ somewhat from that of the con- 
crete and personal embodiment of them. To 
unfold and illustrate this mode of discussion 
will be the object of the present chapter. 

As in the case of the eulogy, the literature 
of this form of the occasional address is abun- 
dant ; and the inductive method which teaches 
one how to proceed in constructive processes 
by examples of what has been done by others 
is as available in this section of the subject as 
in the other. 

The beginnings of this literature also are re- 
mote. After the prowess and glory of the 
Beginnings of chieftain had been extolled, came 
«vT m«a- ra " the celebration of the event in which 
ture - he took so great a part. But, as the 

individual came to be of less and less account 
and the multitude of more and more, the event 
and the wide-prevailing movement, the princi- 
ple of action, or the repetition of history made 



The Commemorative Address 247 

themselves the objects of thought and the sub- 
jects of speech. Such transition from the per- 
son to the event is often apparent in primitive 
literatures, the Hebraic for example. From 
discourse about the individual, his ancestor, or 
son, his own tribe, its leader, or champion, the 
address soon takes up laws, civil and cere- 
monial, the rewards of obeying them, and the 
penalty for breaking them ; or, as has already 
been said, the speaker turns from the warrior 
to the war, from the king to his acts, his policy, 
his government, and in later times to their 
consequences as foretold in prophecy mingled 
with praise and blame, with assurances of per- 
petuity or with predictions of calamity, cap- 
tivity, and destruction. The same tendency is 
observable in " the bible of the nations/' the 
Homeric literature, coincident with the Davidic 
period of our own Scriptures. Achilles' wrath 
is for a time soon left, like himself, upon the 
shore, in his own hut, and by his own black ship, 
while the fortunes of the well-greaved Achaeans 
occupy the poet's pen. And on the other side 
of the Dardan plain it is not Paris nor even 
Helen, but the fate of the horse-taming Tro- 



248 The Occasional Address 

jans concerning whom those harangues are 
made which, with Argive speeches, fill the 
greater half of the Iliad. In succeeding ora- 
tory, as recorded by the historians who followed 
the epic poets, there is a similar turning from 
persons to events, from military chieftains to 
their victories or defeats, and the consequences 
that ensued; from rulers to statecraft, from 
legislatures to legislation, from Xerxes and 
Philip and Alexander to the many heroes of 
Marathon, Platea, and Salamis first, and then 
to the endangered liberties of Greece, the policy 
of union against Persian invasion, and of resist- 
ance to Macedonian encroachment. 

The same drift from the individual and per- 
sonal concern and attention, to the general and 
national, took place in Latin discourse so long 
as liberty lasted, and until a despot drew all 
speech back to himself in the form of open adu- 
lation or secret malediction. The movement 
itself is in accord with that of all true advance 
in the social and civil life of men and nations, 
from the particular to the general, from the 
importance of the personage to the greater im- 
portance of the community and the state. It 



The Commemorative Address 249 

is also in harmony with the movement and 
growth of the human intellect from its observa- 
tion of the single instance to the perception of 
the general law, and from the concrete example 
to the abstract principle. 

In accordance with this general tendency it 
will be in order to observe with some care the 
literature of this class of demonstrative speech, 
as preparatory to the derivation from it of 
sundry principles and precepts which may 
guide one in the construction of an occasional 
oration or address upon a subject which is 
general rather than personal in character. The 
difference between such subjects will be seen 
the easier, if illustrated by the examples of 
Curtis's eulogy on Bancroft or Lowell, and the 
same speaker's oration upon "The American 
Doctrine of Liberty, or The Leadership of Edu- 
cated Men." 

In a historical view of this literature from the 
age where literary history begins to be con- 
tinuous and definite, the oration, as 

Historical 

distinguished from the eulogy, ap- survey of this 

. . literature. 

pears with increasing frequency. It 

may be not without interest to note, however, 



250 The Occasional Address 

that at the point of departure in Greek elo- 
quence, it is mingled with the eulogy. If the 
celebrated funeral oration which Thucydides 
attributes to Pericles be taken as the first 
example of a fairly reported speech in the 
literature of Hellenic oratory, then it may be 
conceded that the first example also of the oc- 
casional oration is to be found in this masterly 
discourse. For besides eulogizing the brave 
men who were slain in the first year of the 
Peloponesian war, the orator unfolds his con- 
ception of "an ideal civilization, and a fully 
accomplished and established imperial city," 
which should be the Periclean Athens. Here 
then we have a transition resembling other 
transitions in literature, — Theodectes', for in- 
stance, already mentioned. It occurs in the 
speech of an orator who discourses not only of 
the heroic dead, but also of an ideal civiliza- 
tion, illustrated and enforced by the contrast 
between Athens and Sparta. The Athenian 
system, he asserted, set an example to the 
other Hellenic states in the way of national 
power, and also in the development of the in- 
dividual. Frankness and liberality were traits 



The Commemorative Address 251 

of its democracy ; and public dignities were not 
dependent upon social grades, while every citi- 
zen was to concern himself about the laws. 
The amenities of life were to be cultivated, 
irksome discipline minimized without making 
men unequal to the demands of conflict or fear- 
ful of danger. Open-mindedness towards the 
stranger, publicity in discussion, promptness 
in legislation, courage in action, guided by rea- 
son in counsel, were all Athenian characteris- 
tics, substantiated by the fact that Athens 
proved always superior to her reputation when 
the trial came. 

Not remotely related to the eulogy, then, is 
what, for the sake of distinction from it, may 
be called the Commemorative Ad- 

Commemora- 

dress. The one is a memorial of a tion of 

events. 

person, the other of an event. Both 
aim at perpetuating something which is worth 
saving from oblivion, and extending into the 
future what is too valuable to be restricted to 
the brief period when it was present among 
mankind. As between the two, the event is 
often of less duration than a lifetime ; but as 
the issue of causes that have been long in 



252 The Occasional Address 

operation, and as a result of vast consequence 
to multitudes, the event may assume an im- 
portance out of all proportion to the time occu- 
pied in its actual occurrence. Even so long and 
tedious and calamitous an event as either of 
the two great wars in our own country is short 
when compared with the entire life of any one 
of the principal men engaged in it ; but the re- 
sults of such wars are beyond computation in 
their enduring importance. Therefore the 
commemoration of an event may well tax the 
best abilities of an orator. 

The kind of event which is usually com- 
memorated is one to which a people may refer 
with pride. Not always with un- 

Interpreta- x J 

tionand mixed gladness ; for sad memories 

reminiscence. . . 

to the individual are almost always 
inseparable from any great gain that accrues to 
the community or the nation, according to a 
well-known law of sacrifice. But the defeat, 
the misfortune, and the disaster, seldom call 
for commemoration. The labor of the speaker, 
accordingly, in this class of demonstrative 
speech is even pleasanter than in the eulogistic 
class. No qualification or criticism is expected. 



The Commemorative Address 253 

Panegyric would be more excusable. The 
event is impersonal, and commendable; often 
a source of gratification and of honest, honor- 
able pride. The speaker's business is to show 
why it is, and to derive from it legitimate les- 
sons which shall strengthen, encourage, and 
inspire. Reminiscence is the chief burden and 
purpose of such discourse. By recalling the 
high achievement of those times and seasons 
when the people and their leaders have risen to 
the level of a great demand or a great oppor- 
tunity, their successors are made familiar with 
attainments above the ordinary doings of 
everyday life, and are prepared for similar 
achievements when their opportunity also shall 
arrive. It is the oratory of the ideal founded 
upon the real ; the eloquence of romance rest- 
ing upon fact, 

The earliest examples in the literature of 
such eloquence are full of reminiscence as an 
inspiring motive. " Remember the 

r te Early 

day when thou earnest forth out of examples : 

. Hebrew. 

Egypt is the burden of Moses 
encouraging exhortation to Israel in the days 
of their despair and fear before their enemies ; 



254 The Occasional Address 

and the prophets after him are continually re- 
viving the memory of the nation's deliverance. 
In all prophetic oratory there is a retrospective 
element as well as a prospective, a constant 
mindfulness of glorious events and of the 
greater glory of prosperous ages in the history 
of the nation. The leadership of Moses, and 
Samuel, and David ; the wisdom of Solomon, 
and the splendor of the first temple linger in 
the memory of Hebrew orators as inspiring 
records of a nation's possibilities, so long as it 
kept in the right way, and turned not aside 
from truth and equity and righteousness. 
This reminiscent tendency took on an expres- 
sion stronger than words in the anniversary 
feast-days such as the three great festivals of 
the ancient Jewish people, or like that of 
Purim, kept until the present day in memory 
of the nation's deliverance from Haman's 
malicious plot in the reign of Ahasuerus. But 
it is more than probable that no such com- 
memorative festival ever passed without the 
commemorative discourse, explaining the 
meaning of the feast to the young, and en- 
forcing its lessons for the old. Israel had not 



The Commemorative Address 255 

yet escaped from Pharaoh when by special 
command of its great law-giver such instruc- 
tion was enjoined in connection with the feast 
of the Passover, as may be seen in the twelfth 
chapter of the book of Exodus: " And it shall 
come to pass when your children say unto you, 
What mean ye by this service ? that ye shall 
say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, 
who passed over the houses of the children of 
Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians 
and delivered our houses." To this day the 
event is explained to successive generations of 
Hebrews, as also the meaning of the greater 
Christian feast of Easter, in memory of a greater 
deliverance than that from Egyptian bondage, 
is set forth every year in all Christendom. 

Among the nations outside the narrow strip 
of Palestine it is certain that a similar habit of 
commemoration prevailed. The In other 
multitude of memorial festivals nations ' 
which grew up with mythological forms of re- 
ligion or superstition attests the hold which 
reminiscence had upon the mind of antiquity. 
It was always turning toward a golden or heroic 
age, as is the bent of the human mind at all 



256 The Occasional Address 

times. Not to mention the festivals for the 
purpose of honoring or supplicating the gods, 
those for commemorating persons and events 
grew increasingly numerous as luxury and 
wealth increased. This multiplicity is espe- 
cially evident at Athens, because the record of 
it survives ; but there is no reason to suppose 
that a similar abundance of such festivals did 
not prevail in the Egyptian or Assyrian em- 
pires. The very general commemoration of 
whatever the names of Adonis or Thammuz 
represented is one of the earliest examples of 
the retrospective tendency; as are also the 
festivals of Bacchus, Diana, Aphrodite, Ceres, 
Apollo, and Jupiter, emblematical all of some 
power or phase of nature, which it is reasonable 
to suppose was not unexplained to the partici- 
pants. It was, however, at the most distin- 
guished of the four grand and solemn games 
of the Greeks that the literature of commemo- 
ration would be most likely to be cultivated : 
for at Olympia the contests in poetry, history, 
and oratory could not fail to perpetuate the 
meaning and memory of the festival itself, 
whatever else they celebrated. 



The Commemorative Address 257 

When Greek oratory began to be cultivated as 
a fine art it took on a practical character, grow- 
ing out of the necessities of litigation 
and legislation. Therefore commemo- 
rative speech is not so common as judicial and 
deliberative, but now and then the memorial 
element appears in speeches, as might be ex- 
pected among a people who dwell with fond 
pride upon a creditable antiquity. If, how- 
ever, the entire class of epidictic oratory be 
considered, it will be found that it was a more 
powerful factor in the formation of a national 
literature than either the judicial or the de- 
liberative. For its best work was written to be 
read, as well as to be spoken, and its compos- 
ers labored as long and carefully over an ora- 
tion as the poets over a drama. Isocrates was 
employed ten years on his famous Panegyric, 
whose central thought is Hellenic unity against 
the barbarian, radiating into a widening circle 
of subordinate propositions. The followers of 
Isocrates also did much to establish a prose lit- 
erature which was more to the popular taste 
than the judicial or deliberative styles of ora- 
tory. Its influence passed even into the com- 



258 The Occasional Address 

position of historical works. Other orations 
of Isocrates which may be classed as demon- 
strative are the Areopagiticus, containing the 
contrast between the former social life and the 
later; also "The Encomium of Helen," with its 
praise of beauty in the abstract. Lysias also 
delivered epidictic speeches before the great 
Panhellenic assembly at the Olympic festival, 
as Hippias, Gorgias, and the Sophists had done 
in earlier times, in accordance with the idea 
that there should be open competition in every 
art and exercise. Gorgias's Pythian oration in 
particular was renowned in its treatment of the 
subject of Hellenic Unity, reminding one of 
our own great advocate's plea for Union under 
the Constitution. In the Olympiacus of Lysias 
the same thought is enforced of the political 
unity of Hellas against the barbarian. The 
funeral oration ascribed to Lysias, whether 
spoken by him or not, is another example of 
the demonstrative speech, which was cele- 
brated in Aristotle's time, as was also the 
Epitaphius of Gorgias. 

A prolongation of the form of Greek elo- 
quence, after the departure of the spirit of 



The Commemorative Address 259 

liberty from it, tended to produce many ora- 
tions which re-echoed the former eloquence and 
revived old issues, or invented less 

Roman. 

important topics for discussion. So 
in Rome, as there was at first an oratory which 
dealt with momentous questions until these 
began to be settled by imperial absolutism, 
there also followed a period when men who 
could speak found that they must confine 
themselves to subjects of a general nature. No 
doubt, in these periods of declining freedom, 
the occasional oration, dealing with harmless 
generalities, abounded ; but it was composed 
under such restrictions, and in such a lifeless 
or corrupt style, that it could have only a brief 
existence. Such ephemeral productions van- 
ished, with a hundred other fungi, in the 
general decay of the declining empire. 

For centuries after the fifth it is difficult to 
find forensic or deliberative or much demon- 
strative oratory outside ecclesiastical 

Mediaeval. 

precincts. The pulpit in the church 
or market-place or open field has a monopoly 
of eloquence, in a style which varied with the 
place and the man, and sometimes included 



260 The Occasional Address 

the demonstrative phase, if not the judicial and 
deliberative, in court and council. As it may 
be safely asserted that there were many eulo- 
gies spoken, so it may be inferred that many 
subjects of a general character were unfolded. 
Great events were commemorated, and import- 
ant anniversaries were celebrated by clerical 
orators — the coronation of kings, the institu- 
tion of orders, the consecration of bishops, the 
founding of religious houses, the dedication 
of temples, sacred and secular. There was all 
the greater need of the occasional orator in the 
ages when oral communication of knowledge 
was the only method of reaching multitudes 
who could not read and had nothing to read. 
In the meantime there was no printer's art to 
preserve what might have been worth preserv- 
ing, nor any reporter who could put into man- 
uscript whatever might be worth saving. A 
few written sermons have survived the general 
destruction, but they belong mostly to the 
distinct branch of homiletic oratory. 

It is long after the revival of letters that 
what may be called the occasional oration, 
outside the eulogy, begins to appear in litera- 



The Commemorative Address 261 

ture. A few instances in the reign of Louis 
Fourteenth, on the occasion of some royal or 
ecclesiastical solemnity, a few more In France 
apostrophes to learning or liberty in and En ^ land - 
later ages, some stated academic performances 
in the universities of the continent and in Eng- 
land are about all that can be excavated from 
the literary accumulations of the renaissance 
centuries. They are chiefly valuable as signs 
and tokens of what was current in their age 
rather than as instructive examples for our 
own. Not much will be lost if they are passed 
over, and we come directly to our own century 
and country where abundant examples may 
be found of what is most needed in the study 
of the memorial address. 

It may seem to be an unpardonable over- 
sight to pass by the eloquence of Great Britain 
in the last century without enumerating at 
length examples of commemorative speech ; but 
the overwhelming mass of deliberative oratory, 
supplemented by forensic argumentation, nearly 
hide the remnant that may be called occasional. 
Of this a number of eulogistic instances have 
been already cited under the appropriate title. 



262 The Occasional Address 

For the rest, the civil and ecclesiastical records 
furnish abundant material that has had a local 
and temporary interest and value. 

There is no lack of this kind of discourse in 
our own land and literature. In the same col- 
lection where so many examples of 

In America. 

the eulogy are found there is a simi- 
lar abundance of commemorative orations. 
Beginning with those of an academic character : 
there is a volume containing perhaps only a 
hundredth part of all that have been delivered ; 
but in these eighteen chance specimens there 
are addresses to alumni associations by Joseph 
Story, Robert C. Winthrop, Henry J. Ray- 
mond, and Nicholas Biddle. This collection, it 
should be said, is aside from the Phi Beta Kappa 
anniversary addresses at many colleges in many 
years, which themselves constitute a small li- 
brary. Here anticipatory mention may be made 
of three notable addresses which were made in 
commemoration of the founding of as many 
universities ; that of President Barnas Sears on 
the one hundreth anniversary of the founding of 
Brown University in 1867; that of James Rus- 
sell Lowell on the two hundred and fiftieth anni- 



The Commemorative Address 263 

versary of the founding of Harvard University 
in 1886; and that of Grover Cleveland, Presi- 
dent of the United States, on the two hun- 
dredth anniversary of the founding of Princeton 
University in 1896. There are also four vol- 
umes of anniversary discourses, mostly by 
ministers, and thirteen volumes of centennial 
discourses, in which the settlement of one 
town or city after another is celebrated, not to 
mention at length Jeremy Belknap's commem- 
oration of the discovery of America (1792), or 
John Quincy Adams's (1-843) on the- New Eng- 
land Confederacy of 1643. Ralph Waldo 
Emerson and John Gorham Palfrey did not 
hesitate to follow, in 1835, and 1839, respect- 
ively, upon a lesser theme, as John Hancock 
had spoken in 1739 upon no greater theme 
than the Settlement of Braintree. Seventeen 
volumes of election sermons, four hundred and 
seventy-five in all, testify to the importance 
which early republicanism had in New Eng- 
land. The Fourth of July has already inspired 
eight volumes of addresses deemed worthy of 
publication, two hundred and twenty-five in 
number, besides sixty-five delivered in Boston 



264 The Occasional Address 

which have also found their way into print. It 
should be borne in mind that this collection is 
only one out of many that are in existence, 
and that a complete list of all that have been 
spoken or printed, would itself make a volume 
of no inconsiderable size. Enough, however, 
have been cited to show that the literature of 
the commemorative address in this country is 
extensive. It is also creditable. Compared 
with contemporaneous efforts in other depart- 
ments of literature the oration does not suffer. 
To emphasize this statement it may be well to 
cite examples which best illustrate this branch 
of oratory. 

As has been observed, there were instances 
of commemorative speech from the first settle- 
ment of New England; but it was 

Webster's & 

commemora- just two hundred years from the 

tive orations. ' 

landing at Plymouth before the per- 
fected flower of eloquence blossomed in the 
commemorative discourse of Daniel Webster, 
recalling the virtues of the pilgrims and review- 
ing the growth of the State they founded. It 
is one of the greater achievements of a great 
orator. With calm and philosophic survey he 



The Commemorative Address 265 

traces the course of a new empire from its ob- 
scure fountain in a Yorkshire village — a few 
families escaping in a stormy night to a deso- 
late coast, and in a frail craft crossing the 
North Sea to a foreign land, more hospitable 
than their own, where they waited for another 
removal to the bleak wilderness across the 
Atlantic. The colonial life of the new country 
is then compared with that of other people and 
times ; its marvellous prosperity, its independ- 
ence, its devotion to learning and religion, its 
public spirit, wise legislation, love of literature, 
all contributing to make a nation exceptional 
in the advantages which it affords for the de- 
velopment of what is best in human life and 
character. Five years later the address de- 
livered at the laying of the corner-stone of the 
Bunker Hill Monument presented another ex- 
ample of what the new nation could produce 
in the way of demonstrative eloquence. It 
was a memorial of a struggle for liberty, as the 
other was a commemoration of the planting of 
a new people. As such a memorial it recalled 
the scenes enacted on that consecrated Hill 
fifty years before, in which the little group of 



266 The Occasional Address 

venerable men before the speaker had taken 
part. His address to them and to their com- 
rades who fell in battle as if present, is worthy 
of the epitaphian eloquence of the best Hellenic 
orators or of the eulogists of Louis Fourteenth's 
reign. His encomium of Lafayette has all the 
grace without the qualifications of Pliny's ad- 
dress to Trajan. Following this is the account 
of cordial sympathy and co-operation which 
made thirteen separate colonies one in purpose 
and action, with a review of the prosperity 
which had attended the first half century of 
the nation's existence. Its advance in wealth 
and knowledge, the sciences and the arts are 
portrayed with vividness and power. The 
consequent obligations of a free and prosper- 
ous people are not forgotten, and the duty of 
defence and preservation is enforced with 
words of courage and hope, " that the country 
itself may become a vast and splendid Monu- 
ment of Wisdom, Peace, and Liberty." 

The next year Mr. Webster delivered the 
most eloquent of all the memorial addresses 
which were pronounced throughout the land 
on the death of Adams and Jefferson, fifty 



The Commemorative Address 267 

years from the Declaration of Independence. 
It was an occasion which was its own inspira- 
tion, conveying its own lesson ; but this great 
orator was the man to interpret it to his con- 
temporaries in the old Cradle of Liberty, full 
of historic memories. The key-note of his 
masterly eulogium is the sentiment, that 
though dead they live to their country in their 
imperishable work for that country. 

"Like the benignity "of a summer's day, they have gone 
down with slow-descending, grateful, long-lingering light to 
cheer with good omens from beyond the visible margin of 
the world." 

Similarities in the lives and fortunes of these 
great men are then traced, and afterward an 
account of the life of each is given in bold out- 
line. The point where they converge and 
mingle in the Declaration of Independence is 
made the occasion for noting the part each bore 
in this momentous proceeding — the one draw- 
ing up and the other defending the charter of 
American liberties promulgated by the new 
nation for itself, to be established by its own 
arms, and sealed with its own blood. The 
merits of Jefferson's noble Composition are 



268 The Occasional Address 

emphasized, while Adams's advocacy of it is 
made the inspiration of the famous definition 
of eloquence beginning: " When public bodies 
are to be addressed on momentous occasions," 
and ending with the assertion that " it is some- 
thing greater than eloquence; it is action, 
noble, sublime, godlike action." Contempo- 
raneous testimony asserts that the speaker him- 
self was the best illustration of his statement. 
In the speech which he attributes to Adams, 
notwithstanding its dramatic fidelity, there is 
much of Mr. Webster's own personality. The 
words " Sink or swim, live or die, survive or 
perish," have a pre-revolutionary tone; but 
the imputed sentiments are such as the eulo- 
gist himself would have uttered had he lived 
in that period which tried men's souls. 

After a tribute to the zealous attachment of 
both to the cause of sound learning, which 
their own lives and characters illustrated, pass- 
ing judiciously over controversies which be- 
longed to the administration of each, he gathers 
up the instruction of two illustrious lives, and 
enforces the obligation of following such worthy 
examples. 



The Commemorative Address 269 

" This lovely land, this glorious liberty, these benign institu- 
tions are ours ; ours to enjoy, ours to preserve, ours to transmit. 
Let not the blood of the fathers have been shed in vain ; the 
great hope of posterity, let it not be blasted. Beneath the illu- 
mination of our own stars in the firmament let us walk the 
course of life, and at its close commend our beloved country 
to the Divine Benignity." 

In 1843, eighteen years from the laying of 
the corner-stone, Mr. Webster delivered the 
address of dedication of Bunker Hill Monu- 
ment. It is marked by the same nobleness of 
sentiment and grace of diction that character- 
ized the first address, and conveys the same 
lessons of devoted patriotism. The two to- 
gether doubtless did much to inspire that gen- 
eration and the succeeding one with loyalty to 
the Union and with gratitude to the founders 
and defenders of national liberty. These, and 
the Plymouth oration will remain pre-eminent 
as master-pieces of commemorative eloquence. 
Their best passages have been learned by the lads 
of three generations, and their sound political 
teachings have been absorbed with the studies 
of the schools ; contributing in no small degree 
to good citizenship and patriotism throughout 
the land. Great judicial arguments and greater 
deliberative speeches were made by Mr. Web- 



270 The Occasional Address 

ster and his contemporaries, but it is his un- 
equalled achievements in demonstrative oratory 
that have been the educators of the people in 
the principles of constitutional freedom. How 
much they have done also in forming a sound 
taste in public speech can be estimated only by 
probabilities; but it is safe to say, that his 
sturdy Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, his vigorous 
diction, strong in the power of the common 
word rightly placed, dependent for its effective- 
ness upon no fanciful arrangement or far- 
fetched device, his sustained discourse, moving 
always with imperial dignity and apparent ease, 
contributed largely to the character of public 
speech in the age succeeding his own. The 
best of this is not widely diverse from its great 
exemplar. It could not be without unfavorable 
comparison with the people's standard. Other 
orators might have more classic elegance, more 
vivid imagination, more sparkling wit, more of 
the spoils of antiquity, and more graceful flexi- 
bility, but none more of strong sense, profound 
reason, and weighty diction. Nor were any 
endowed with the irresistible force of his ma- 
jestic presence, which is said to have towered 



The Commemorative Address 271 

like a mountain over his hearers. Aside from 
these efforts Mr. Webster did not deliver many 
commemorative addresses or turn much away 
from professional and senatorial duties. These 
few examples, however, show that he was equal 
to the greatest occasions. 

The orator who made the occasional address 
almost the vocation of his life was Edward 
Everett. In his works, evidently 

J Everett's 

published under his immediate super- frequent 

addresses. 

vision, six orations out of the first 
seven are commemorative in character. The 
first of these is at Plymouth, two years after 
Webster's, the next at Concord, another at 
Cambridge, two more at Charlestown, and the 
sixth at the erection of a monument to John 
Harvard. All these were delivered within the 
first four years of his public life. Others fol- 
low at an interval of about a year between 
them, — orations and speeches signalizing some 
occurrence; eulogies and memorial addresses 
commemorating one event or life and another. 
The entire collection constitutes almost a 
branch of American literature in itself. Based 
upon classic foundations these productions 



272 The Occasional Address 



might pass for the work of an Attic orator if 
they had been rendered into the Greek lan- 
guage, — as this eminent scholar could have 
rendered them if he had chosen. There were 
allusions in them which would have been at 
home in the Greek tongue and country, while 
the liberty he lauded and inculcated would 
have harmonized with Hellenic discourse. 
" Olympia" closes the first paragraph of his 
first oration, " Panegyric of Isocrates " Occurs 
on the first page of it, and few leaves can be 
turned in any address without betraying his 
familiarity with ancient oratorical literature 
and his fondness for what is best and noblest 
in it. On a page which happens to lie open 
the first words are " Homer and Cicero," and 
within a little more than its extent is a com- 
parison of the literatures of the Alexandrian 
and Periclean ages, of the Roman and the 
Italian, of Dante, Boccacio, and Petrarch; of 
Spanish, French, and English writers. Tasso, 
Cervantes, Corneille, Shakespeare, Milton, 
Johnson, Burke, and many another are cited 
to show of how little value is the patronage of 
letters by governments. Following these ora- 



The Commemorative Address 27$ 

tions were others upon " The Boyhood and 
Youth of Franklin," " The Second Century of 
Harvard College," a " Eulogy on John 
Adams," " The Battle of Bunker Hill," " The 
Dedication of Boston Public Library." Other 
notable addresses are those upon Benjamin 
Franklin, Daniel Webster, Washington Irving, 
" The Vindication of American Institutions," 
" Causes and Conduct of the Civil War," and 
" The National Cemetery at Gettysburg." In 
addition to these there were short speeches on 
public occasions when Mr. Everett's absence 
would have been counted as something want- 
ing to the completeness of the arrangements. 
The entire collection of his occasional addresses 
fills five large volumes, giving him the prece- 
dence, if not the primacy, so far as numbers 
go, among the occasional orators of this cen- 
tury, and, perhaps, in all centuries. 
18 



III. 



THE EXPOSITORY ADDRESS. 



IT is with Edward Everett also that a type of 
the occasional address became prominent 
which can be considered as more general in 
character than either the eulogy or commemo- 
rative oration, its purpose being to 

Exposition x l 

and interpre- set forth or interpret the suggested 

tation. . 

topic of the hour. The subject 
itself may belong to the wide domain of gen- 
eral truths and principles, and the object of the 
speaker may be equally large and comprehen- 
sive. Occasions will arise of a literary, social, 
or civil nature which demand appropriate cele- 
bration or recognition without the necessary 
discussion of a ' ' burning question of the hour, 
and when such discussion would be entirely 
out of place and foreign to the spirit of the 
occasion. There might be a violation of the 
274 



The Expository Address 275 

social compact in bringing the neediest of 
causes before the audience. The orator's ob- 
ject at such a time may be no more defined 
than to meet the demand for a speaker who 
shall help to secure an hour of good feeling, 
peace, and harmony among a great assembly of 
people having diverse interests and dispositions, 
opinions, and beliefs. Indeed, one who shall 
induce such a symphony of souls for an hour 
has. for that space of time, accomplished the 
end and purpose of all laudable speech and 
labor towards anticipating the millennium. It 
is because such desirable states are not yet per- 
manent that more aggressive words and more 
violent action are resorted to in order to hasten 
the coming of the kingdom which mankind 
always believes is in the future. It is there- 
fore no ignoble undertaking to make of one 
heart and one mind even a hundred hearers for 
as many minutes. 

The power to do this and the way to do it 
were both exemplified in the oratory of Mr. 
Everett on numerous occasions. A Edward 
man of peace himself, he was an Everett, 
orator to speak peace to either discordant or 



276 The Occasional Address 

harmonious assemblies. Signal examples of 
this conciliatory tone of address were the three 
speeches delivered on the occasion of public 
festivities as he was travelling through Tennes- 
see, Kentucky, and Ohio the year after his 
memorial address upon John Harvard. The 
Union is the burden of his thought, and the 
increasing confederation of States extending 
itself westward with prosperity assured in the 
fertile fields of a new country. No note of 
possible antagonism or rival interests was ut- 
tered on an " occasion consecrated to the 
oblivion of every topic of party strife." A 
projected National Road was to bind the States 
together ; the news of the battle of Lexington 
in Massachusetts had given the name to the 
capital of Kentucky; and this was in the " era 
of good feeling," which no one did more to 
promote than the peace-loving advocate of 
harmony, even at the expense of subserviency 
to sectional domination in politics, as some 
thought. A discourse on the " Importance of 
Scientific Knowledge to Practical Men " is an- 
other example of a theme of general applica- 
tion. The diffusion of useful knowledge among 



The Expository Address 277 

the working classes, the improvement of their 
minds, and the consequent elevation above 
things altogether sordid, was a subject in which 
the large benevolence and profound learning of 
the speaker found an opportunity to mingle for 
the general welfare without disturbing the pre- 
judices of many hearers. There is a pleasant 
wholesomeness about such discourse which 
commends itself to a mixed multitude of skilled 
mechanics, who are not without their fixed 
opinions and ready criticisms, but, as the 
speaker remarked, " never vicious or indolent 
as a class." Before these he held up the ex- 
ample of the world's great workers, many of 
them men of genius. An essential part of this 
he showed to consist in the capacity and dispo- 
sition for persistent and persevering toil. 

It may be surprising to those who know of 
Mr. Everett chiefly by traditions of his classic 
stateliness, that he could thus interest the 
masses. One who knew him well and heard 
him often once wrote : 

" Because he was naturally reserved and shy, and took no 
pains to invite a following of the young men of his day, they 
in turn took on a critical tone in speaking of him which has 



278 The Occasional Address 

been continued to the present time. It is easier to call him 
' frigid and artificial, priggish and pedantic ' than to account 
for those qualities to which his contemporaries cordially bear 
witness ; qualities which in some way made his audiences take 
the roof off in their wild enthusiasm when he led them up 
and on as hardly any other speaker I have ever seen. He had 
extraordinary power in absolutely extemporary discourse more 
than any man I ever knew." 

The fact that he trained no school of followers, 
should in no degree qualify an eloquence which 
it is easier to dispute than to rival. 

Rufus Choate was another master of the in- 
terpretative address. Amidst the occupations 
Rufus °f an extremely crowded professional 

choate. life he f ounc j t j me f or t h e cultivation 

of literature, and for the exposition of its best 
lessons to the people. As indicating the range 
of his studies may be cited the titles of his 
addresses on " The Importance of Illustrating 
New England History by a Series of Ro- 
mances," " The Colonial Age of New Eng- 
land," " The Heroic Period of Our History," 
" The Power of a State Developed by Mental 
Culture," " The Eloquence of Revolutionary 
Periods," " The Position of the American Bar 
as an Element of Conservatism in the State," 
and " Amercan Nationality." To these may 



The Expository Address 279 

be added " A Discourse Commemorative of 
Daniel Webster," delivered at Dartmouth Col- 
lege, the alma mater of both Mr. Webster and 
Mr. Choate. 

It was with Mr. Everett and Mr. Choate 
that the occasional address sometimes passed 
into the form of the popular lecture, 

The popular 

itself to assume an important place lecture and 

lecturers. 

in the more general education of the 
people. Combining entertainment with in- 
struction, it became a field into which entered 
the best literary and oratorical ability of the 
nation for a period of forty years. Every 
Northern city had several courses each winter, 
and every town of considerable importance 
secured such talent as it could afford. Churches, 
lyceums, and speculators went into the lecture 
business for the good of the community, and 
incidentally for the emolument of the parties 
undertaking it. But, strictly speaking, the 
lecture was not an occasional address, as 
it was not mainly didactic. Often it did 
interpret some truth, or discuss a question of 
morals, politics, or philosophy; but the occa- 
sion was almost as frequent and regular as the 



280 The Occasional Address 

Sunday, and the subject had sometimes the 
flavor and treatment of a sermon. Like homi- 
letic literature, that of the lecture was generally 
ephemeral, and is largely lost or scattered in 
biographies and collected works of one and an- 
other of its once famous authors. Of these, 
among the best known at the height of the 
lecture period were Chapin, Beecher, Gough, 
Emerson, Phillips, Curtis, and Holmes. With 
the departure of these men, the glory of the 
popular lecture passed away. Strenuous en- 
deavors were made here and there to preserve 
its usefulness and power, but with little success. 
It had come and gone with the orators and the 
issues that grew into importance together, and 
with the increasing thoughtfulness of a people 
who listened to the speakers and meditated upon 
their presentation of momentous questions. 
When these were settled the surviving lecturers 
themselves found little stimulus in subordinate 
themes, and the people, relieved from a pro- 
tracted strain, turned to lighter diversions or 
plunged into special and technical studies. 

Charles Sumner added to his eulogistic and 
commemorative orations already mentioned 



The Expository Address 281 

others of an interpretative character, as, for ex- 
ample, the lectures on the " Employment of 
Time," on " Slavery and the Mexi- charies 
can War," " White Slavery in the Sumner ' 
Barbary States," " Fame and Glory," " The 
Law of Human Progress." These are but a 
small fraction of his declarations on similar 
themes ; but such utterances were largely in the 
United States Senate, or before political meet- 
ings. His speeches and addresses are those of 
a statesman, although upon occasions of a liter- 
ary character he was surpassed by few. 

Robert C. Winthrop began his public career 
with occasional addresses upon " The Pilgrim 
Fathers," " The Influence of Com- Robert c. 
merce," " The National Monument winthr °P- 
to Washington," " Free Schools and Free 
Governments," and " The Bible." Then his 
congressional life began, and speeches and re- 
marks are the rule with him rather than the 
more formal occasional address. Memorable 
exceptions are the addresses on " The Obliga- 
tions and Responsibilities of Educated Men " ; 
an address at the laying of the corner-stone of 
Boston Public Library, 1855, and another at 



282 The Occasional Address 

its dedication, 1858; on the " Two Hundred 
and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Landing of 
the Pilgrims "; an oration on " Colonel Wil- 
liam Prescott," at Bunker Hill; another, at 
Yorktown, Virginia, on " Cornwallis's Surren- 
der," and another at the unveiling of the statue 
of Daniel Webster in New York, and the 
" Centennial Oration " in Boston, 1876. 

Wendell Phillips's contributions to the liter- 
ature of the expository address can best be 
wendeii known by an examination of his 
Phillips - works. His public life was filled 
with such addresses, many of which he passed 
as lectures upon willing audiences. " Public 
Opinion," " The Pilgrims," " Idols," " The 
Lost Arts," " Disunion," " Progress," " The 
Education of the People," " The Scholar in a 
Republic," are examples of themes which he 
developed for the instruction of his fellow-citi- 
zens in their manifold duties. In these subjects 
and through them often ran the current of his 
antagonism to slavery, and in some of them 
this was the main thought and purpose; but 
aside from this he had much to say to his lis- 
teners about a wide variety of truths. How 



The Expository Address 283 

wide, a reading of the addresses themselves 
will best show. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson found the lecture 
platform a movable bema from which he 
uttered things not heard in the pul- Ralph Wa i do 
pits of his forefathers for seven gen- Emerson, 
erations. But such was the charm of his voice 
and personality that his sphinx-like, oracular 
epigrams delighted listeners. What they could 
not understand they called heresy, and what 
they did not believe they supposed to be 
transcendentalism, and invited him to come 
again the next winter. 

George William Curtis was another who was 
a clear interpreter of events and affairs as they 
succeeded one another in the stirring 

George 

times before and after the Civil War. wiiiiam 
By pen and tongue he made plain 
the duty of American patriots and philanthro- 
pists, of citizens and scholars. It was his good 
fortune to be able to do this through influen- 
tial journals as well as on the platform, and in 
himself to represent a transition of literary 
effort from the latter to the former, which took 
place in the last quarter of the century. 



284 The Occasional Address 

Taken together, the second and third quar- 
ters of it produced a group of orators who 
illustrate the value of the expository and inter- 
pretative address as a public educator in life, 
letters, and politics beyond any former com- 
pany of speakers in modern times. There 
have been coteries of great orators who were 
advocates, statesmen, and preachers; but for 
men who combine with their professional abil- 
ity the versatility and broad culture that en- 
ables them to explore and reveal other fields of 
knowledge, the group just mentioned stands 
pre-eminent if not supreme. 





IV. 

THE COMMENCEMENT 
ORATION. 



FOR two hundred and fifty years this form 
of the occasional address has been the 
most familiar, because the most frequent one 
in this country. At each academic anniversary 
there has usually been delivered a i ts literature 
learned and somewhat stately pro- abundant - 
duction by a distinguished speaker before some 
association. The entire collection of such ad- 
dresses form a literature unsurpassed in volume 
for profundity of erudition and elegance of ex- 
pression. One has only to inquire at any col- 
lege library for as much of this as he will need 
to peruse to get into the current of thought 
and style in any year of the last two centuries. 
He will find many notable examples of elo- 
quence and wisdom which are worth reading 
285 



286 The Occasional Address 

for their practical value, and as examples of the 
English style prevailing at the time. Some 
of them are the best fruit of culture in their 
respective generations. The oration of the 
graduating student is, however, the main topic 
in this chapter. That it is a subject worth 
considering may be inferred from the fact that 
there are about as many colleges in the land as 
there are days in the year. Allowing the usual 
number of speakers to each graduating class, 
there cannot be less than three thousand ora- 
tions delivered during the annual Commence- 
ment season. Counting professional schools, 
this number will be greatly increased. 

In this computation a small deduction may 
be made for the universities which have grown 
its probable to such dimensions that Commence- 
permanence. men |. exercises must consist in func- 
tions belonging to university rather than to 
collegiate affairs. But the numerical ratio of 
students in the Amerian college has not so 
greatly increased in the last half-century as to 
justify a demand for general change in the 
time-honored method of closing the academic 
year. Eight colleges in New England, for in- 



The Commencement Oration 287 

stance, average but a little over two hundred 
students each ; and although there have been 
many changes in matters of instruction and 
equipment, there appears to be little need to 
discard the representation of the college by 
speakers on Commencement Day, and little 
likelihood that this custom will be discon- 
tinued for some time to come. Not because 
it is a venerable custom, nor because colleges 
are conservative ; but because the community, 
and especially the alumni, have a natural de- 
sire to know what a college is doing for its 
students, as indicated by their performance on 
the only day in the year when they appear in 
public in a literary character. It will be an 
evil day for any college when, without good 
and sufficient reason, it is unwilling to submit 
to this test of the work its pupils are doing, or 
when the students themselves are unwilling. 

In regard to the oration itself, let the above 
remark suggest the first condition of it, 
namely, that it should be repre- 

. Its represen- 

sentative in character. The objec- tative 

tion sometimes urged, that these c arac er ' 
academic productions are not of great value in 



288 The Occasional Address 

themselves, has nothing to do with the ques- 
tion of abolishing them altogether. Many 
sermons, and other addresses, fall under the 
same condemnation ; but all preaching and 
public speaking are not on this account to be 
done away with. Moreover, people do not 
attend Commencements to be instructed, al- 
though it may be said that they do sometimes 
get more than they look for. Their chief in- 
terest in a speaker, aside from a personal 
interest, is to observe what present methods 
of education have done for the graduates of 
any year, as shown in a fair presentation of it 
by the best of the class, as other bodies are 
represented by their best. Therefore it will 
be the first thought of the Commencement 
speaker to see that he adequately represents 
his college in his day. 

Accordingly he will not begin to look for a 

topic among the programmes of former years. 

There is no particular interest in 

Subject r 

should be themes which were full of sugges- 

interesting. 

tivenesss a hundred years ago. Such 
as " The French Revolution," or "The Im- 
portance of Encouraging Genius," or " The 



The Commencement Oration 289 

Comparative Advantages of the Civilized and 
Savage State"; "The Happiness of Amer- 
ica"; "The Importance of Education to a 
Republican Government "; " Anticipation as 
Preferable to Enjoyment " ; " The Superiority 
of Agriculture to Other Arts"; " The Bad 
Effects of Party in a State. ' ' All these themes, 
taken from programmes yellow with the dust 
of a hundred years, have an ancient and musty 
flavor about them, suggesting the infancy of 
our Republic, and of American letters. In a 
similar category may be classed certain ab- 
struse philosophical and metaphysical subjects 
often supposed to be of universal and eternal 
interest because perennially interesting to 
students in the last year of their college course, 
when they pursue such studies. They should 
be sparingly introduced into any Commence- 
ment list, and mainly to satisfy the demand of 
a department. This, however, is only a single 
phase of the larger temptation to which gradu- 
ating students are subject — that is, the desire 
to discuss in public, as they have discussed in 
class, the scholastic themes of their senior 
year. As has been remarked, such presenta- 



290 The Occasional Address 

tion will doubtless show what their proficiency 
is, and perhaps this is all that an audience has 
a right to expect; but the speaker must not 
suppose that one tenth of his hearers are going 
to be interested in this sort of themes. If he 
is debating whether to write of things scholas- 
tic, fresh in his own mind, or of things occupy- 
ing the popular mind, the latter will be safe. 
A subject of present interest need not be re- 
jected because the speaker cannot say anything 
new or the last word about it. And if the 
pleasure of the audience be taken into account, 
and their consequent attention, it will be better 
to choose a theme appropriate to the beginning 
of a new century than to go back to earlier dec- 
ades ; to speak, for instance, of currency ques- 
tions rather than of the Missouri Compromise ; 
or again, of " New Methods in Criminology " 
than of " The Limits of the Conditioned." 
Of all the topics which a speaker can appropri- 
ately select, possibly one which presents valu- 
able or inspiring instruction in a personal form 
is safest to choose ; linking it with the charac- 
ter and life of a man not too generally known, 
but who has made an honorable place for him- 



The Commencement Oration 291 

self by worthy if not conspicuous attainment. 
Such examples are often full of interest and 
encouragement, and afford opportunity to 
clothe abstract truth in attractive garb. On 
the other hand, there is no subject however 
abstruse which cannot be made clear and inter- 
esting if the writer knows how to make it so. 

Treatment, then, will perhaps be of more 
consequence in some instances than choice of 
subject. This is not saying that Treatment of 
style is of more value than thought. theme. 

It is the prolonged, patient, and therefore the 
eventually clear thought that is the next obli- 
gation of the Commencement orator. Misty 
rumination, clothed in ambiguous and vague 
phraseology does not pass for profoundity be- 
cause uttered in the dialect of erudition. The 
higher the theme, the simpler and plainer 
should be the diction, and the more illuminat- 
ing the figures of speech. 

In these thought processes it will accordingly 
be of the greatest value if they can be made to 
crystallize around two or three defl- Making 
nite points. It is a frequent charac- points, 

teristic of academic orations that they exhibit 



292 The Occasional Address 

a uniformity of production from beginning to 
end. They lack the variety of emphasis. 
They are apt to be a series of statements in- 
stead of a cumulative treatment of a few propo- 
sitions ending in points so clearly made that 
the listener cannot escape them. Points, too, 
are all that he can be expected to remember ; 
the fewer and stronger the better. Perhaps 
one point, well made, is enough; if so, let it 
be approached by a diversified path rather than 
on the uniform level of a railway track. If 
more than one are attempted let them be made 
so few and plain that they will not be forgotten 
when the topic and the speaker are remem- 
bered. Generally it is the impression only, 
good or poor, that can be carried away after 
several have spoken. 

Another tendency in preparation is to under- 
take too much for a ten-minute speech. It is 
not borne in mind that an audience 

Condensation 

and compres- does not expect a speaker to tell all 
he knows, and to give the total re- 
sult of a four-years' course of study in a thou- 
sand words. To be sure, it is not an easy task 
to compress all that can be said upon an inter- 



The Commencement Oration 293 

esting topic within these limits and do it justice. 
This is not demanded. All that is wanted is 
to see what the speaker might do if he had 
more time. It is the few paces that show the 
gait, the few minutes the man, the few men 
the college. The speaker who has spoken ten 
minutes may be sure that his hearers will credit 
him with much more than he has had time to 
say, and for more knowledge than he has ex- 
hibited. Condensation will be of value. No 
one knows the compressibility of thought and 
of language so well as those who are limited in 
the space and time at their command. Con- 
densation is the student's bane, the last accom- 
plishment he acquires. " How can I condense 
these twenty pages into ten ? " asked a pupil. 
" An easy matter," replied the professor, 
" paste them together." The result could 
doubtless have been accomplished more satis- 
factorily by cutting down each sentence to its 
essential length and without the loss of a single 
thought. It is the qualification of statements 
and their needless fortification that most often 
fill the page and tire the listener. 

After blocking out and clearing up the 



294 The Occasional Address 

thought, absorbing or rejecting such material 

as has been gathered in preparation, there will 

be some choice in the kind of dic- 

Technical 

terms to be tion to be employed when much is 

avoided. . 

to be said in a short time. The 
natural propensity is to fly to technical terms 
with their precise comprehensiveness. This 
will do in some places and with some hearers. 
In an academic audience it is a nice question 
about the currency of scholastic terms. The 
faculty will understand them ; the graduating 
class, if they have all elected the subject ; those 
of the alumni who have not forgotten it, and 
sundry ambitious readers, constituting all 
together perhaps one third the average Com- 
mencement audience. The orator or his in- 
structor must decide whether it is better not 
to be understood by the other two thirds than 
to lose time in making a technical subject clear 
by circumlocutory phrases. It is not so grave 
a fault to use the technical term as if the audi- 
ence before him were a political one. Even 
there also can be found technical terms, and 
who but the initiated can understand the lingo 
of athletics, or for that matter all the English 



The Commencement Oration 295 

of the college precincts ? Still the benevolent 
speaker will be " altruistic " enough to remem- 
ber that in the " solidarity " before him there" 
are some who have no more " cognition " of 
his meaning when he indulges in the abstruse 
terminology of the classroom than when he is 
sporting the dialect of the ball-field or of the 
college grounds. He will therefore try to 
speak English as it is understood by the great- 
est number on all occasions — Commencement- 
Day among the rest. 

The desire and the necessity to condense 
may betray the writer of an oration into a fault 
of diction indicated by the word 

Epigrammatic 

" choppy." Epigrammatic sen- style unsatis- 

, . <• , 1 factory. 

tences, containing the gist of whole 
paragraphs, and following one another without 
apparent connection, cannot carry the mean- 
ing of ten times their volume, for which the 
speaker finds he has no room. This may do 
for the essayist's printed page, when the reader 
has time to construct bridges from one isolated 
dictum to another. But the hearer has not 
this advantage. Accordingly, the only re- 
source left to the speaker is to give a reason- 



296 The Occasional Address 

able fulness to his diction, and not undertake 
to exhaust his subject. He will lay off a small 
plat for thorough tillage rather than stake out 
acres to ramble over. 

For this reason he will better attempt some- 
thing in the line of a thesis than the conven- 
Advantages tional oration. This is indeed the 
of the thesis. best form of an aca demic production 

for the Commencement stage. It does not 
require the oratorical construction and expres- 
sion, to which students are naturally averse on 
account of their inexperience and the limited 
time allowed for speaking. It is, moreover, the 
form in which a thorough exposition of one 
segment of a general subject can be presented 
or a single proposition be maintained. Further- 
more, it has the sanction of antiquity, from the 
time when students presented their theses for 
degrees in mediaeval universities, and it is to- 
day the customary graduating exercise in pro- 
fessional schools, and in one at least of the 
larger universities lately established. In 
method, it develops a single point of a subject 
as fully as time will allow, without undertaking 
to trace all the ramifications. It may thus be 



The Commencement Oration 297 

scholarly without pedantry, and interesting 
without an attempt at eloquence or elocution. 
By this it is not intended to cast any slight 
upon good delivery. This part of the address 
needs more attention, rather than 

Delivery. 

less, as the composition becomes less 
oratorical in character, or the place less favor- 
able to elocutionary exhibition. A good de- 
livery is more difficult to acquire than good 
composition. It is a natural gift, but one that 
may be wasted and lost or increased tenfold. 
Usually there is no lack of opportunity to make 
the most of one's ability in this direction while 
in college. Still the conception of what is fit- 
ting in each speaker may vary, and other quali- 
fications intervene to such an extent that it is 
only one in a hundred who meets with excep- 
tional success. A recent mistaken sentiment 
with regard to the value of a good delivery has 
also militated against vocal culture. But a reac- 
tion is sure to come, and the human voice will 
once more be recognized as one of the high- 
est endowments bestowed upon man for his 
influence over his fellows. This gift, like other 
allotments, is not always placed where it will 



298 The Occasional Address 

be most serviceable, nor is it always accom- 
panied by due appreciation and cultivation on 
the part of the possessor; but conjoined with 
mental power and improved by training, a good 
vocalization is worth a fortune to a public 
speaker. As a surpassing accomplishment, 
however, the price of it is in long and faithful 
practice, and more tedious labor than most 
men are willing to bestow in these driving 
times. In college, if one half the time that is 
bestowed on other athletic exercise were given 
to vocal gymnastics, the effect would be as 
creditable to the college on Commencement 
days, as is the ball game. The results in im- 
proved health would also be no less than in 
other forms of exercise, without the dangers 
attendant upon some of them, and with more 
value in after life. 

It would be more agreeable, no doubt, to 

read directions for writing an effective oration, 

if they could be given here at length, 

Methods of J s & v 

composition but such details belong to college 

outlined. 

courses in composition. Matters of 
choosing a subject, extracting a theme, finding 
first what one can himself say about it, and 



The Commencement Oration 299 

then what others have said, making notes of 
reading, distributing material in proper order, 
keeping the divisions distinct from each other, 
and separate points in mind, making the plan 
and filling it in, writing the first draft, revising, 
condensing, abridging, omitting, — all this is 
the daily work of one who expects to become 
an effective speaker. Something, too, will be 
caught from acquaintance with the literature 
of oratory, and something more from such 
suggestions as instructors may give. Chiefly, 
however, the good writer and speaker will be 
self-made. No amount of instruction will 
make a good mathematician out of a poor head 
for figures, or a poet out of a person in whom 
there is not an inborn aptitude for rhyme and 
metre. Neither can it be expected that one 
who has not the literary faculty will attain 
eminence in letters, or that one who has not 
the oratorical gifts will sway listening crowds. 
But it should be within the power of almost 
any educated man to state clearly and definitely 
whatever thoughts or information he may have 
upon ordinary subjects. According to his 
talents he should be able to do this upon the 



300 The Occasional Address 

day of his graduation, if asked. It is a duty 
he owes to his college, and to the men who 
have endowed it. Possibly he owes it to those 
who have given him golden opportunities of 
education. If he has earned these by his own 
efforts he owes it to himself to take advantage 
of every occasion which shall place him before 
an assembly of his fellow-men, as one who 
has a message from his alma mater to the 
community in which it stands as an uplifting 
force. It may be for him the first of a series 
of messages which he shall utter in after life. 
It will be a help to him then if he make a 
creditable beginning now, as many distin- 
guished men have made, on the day of their 
graduation. Certainly he will seldom find an 
occasion more trying, or again, hearers more 
appreciative and charitable and attentive than 
on the day when he delivers his Commence- 
ment oration. 



V. 



THE POLITICAL SPEECH. 



THIS chapter is not intended for veterans. 
They have learned things which it is not 
necessary to tell them ; things which would be 
of great value if they could be recorded here 
for the benefit of the less experienced. It is 
this class that is addressed, with the remem- 
brance fresh of a campaign year in college days. 
A few students, full of zeal for the 

Students in 

party with which they had just cast a political 

t . n • . i iit campaign. 

their first municipal vote, had been 
promised chances to speak before the impend- 
ing election took place. It was a rare oppor- 
tunity to put in practice rhetorical and oratorical 
theories they had learned in college. They 
also possessed some partisan enthusiasm which 
they called patriotism, and they had a share of 
that self-confidence which helps one to take 
301 



302 The Occasional Address 

sanguine views. Like Archimedes they said, 
" Give us where to stand," although in justice 
it must be added that they did not promise to 
move the world. But there were country vil- 
lages not far away which had suffered many 
things from student preachers, and it was 
hoped that they would not despise similar per- 
formances of a political character. Accordingly 
vacation days were given to sundry theoretical 
and practical studies in politics, preparatory to 
stump speaking in the autumn. It is not nec- 
essary to prolong the story of that campaign. 
Results proved the supposition true, that there 
is no better field for a collegian, or any young 
man, to test the value of his knowledge, and 
his estimate of his own powers and resources, 
than in a political campaign. He will learn 
some things not taught in the schools, and be- 
come rapidly acquainted with human nature 
and himself. It may be worth the while to 
mention a few particulars which readily trans- 
late themselves into maxims of value to the 
beginner in this kind of occasional oratory. 

One of the first things he will discover is, the 
unsuspected amount of information possessed 



The Political Speech 303 

by an audience of ordinary people. He does 
not recognize this latent knowledge as he looks 
them over. He concludes that he is 

Political 

going to win an easy victory, if he knowledge of 

the people. 

can succeed in bringing his argu- 
ments down to the level of their intelligence. 
Getting under way with his speech, and won- 
dering if he is talking over his hearers' heads, 
he may be interrupted with a question which 
all at once makes him doubt if he fully un- 
derstands every side of his topic. How did the 
knowledge requisite to ask that question get into 
this secluded town ? He begins to suspect 
that somebody must take the other party's 
paper, which he himself has neglected to read 
on the supposition that all truth is the preroga- 
tive of his own party organs, and all political 
heresy the invention of opposition sheets. 
Furthermore, he is in a worse plight than his 
friend the divinity student, to whom the cus- 
tomary courtesy of the Sunday congregation 
permits no open cavil. Not so is it in the 
campaign meeting ; and if he succeed in reply- 
ing satisfactorily to himself he may not to the 
satisfaction of the audience, and certainly will 



304 The Occasional Address 

not to that of the questioner. From this mo- 
ment he will speak with the constant appre- 
hension of further surprises. But they will do 
him good if they spring up. They will teach 
him that knowledge, like water, will leach into 
remote places, and that under unpromising ap- 
pearances there is often much shrewd sense 
that cannot be overwhelmed by the best logic, 
when convictions are backed by prejudice and 
supposed interest. These last elements the 
speaker will find conspicuously present when 
he transfers his efforts from the country school- 
house, or town-hall, to the ward room of the 
city. 

In either place he will learn one thing, 
namely, that there is little delicacy and no 
value of con- circumlocution or euphemism in 
popular criti- PM* 1 * blunt men who, like the 
cism. Athenian of old, consider them- 

selves a part of the State because they cast 
ballots. Their questions are challenges to be 
met squarely, or with a frank confession of 
their pertinency and merits. Their value to 
the speaker is in setting him to dig about the 
foundations of his belief, and to look for the 



The Political Speech 305 

weak places in the oratorical and logical fabric 
he has been constructing for himself and the 
good of the country. Incidentally, also, he 
learns to be interrupted, and meanwhile to 
keep his temper and self-possession. Advo- 
cates acquire this useful habit in the courts, 
and legislators in assemblies ; but it sometimes 
happens that when they are out of the arenas 
where combat is according to rule, they meet 
with an unconventional foe whose uncouth 
ways play the mischief with forensic and par- 
liamentary methods. Defeat at such hands is 
not suggestive of Waterloo so much as of Lex- 
ington. The ** embattled farmers' " intermit- 
tent and galling fire is more annoying than the 
volleys of the regulars. To become accus- 
tomed to this ambuscade warfare, to learn to 
take as well as to give, is another acquisition 
of great value. Much depends upon good 
humor in this, for a lost temper is an argument 
lost. It betrays a distrust of one's strength 
and ability to defend his cause. A good- 
natured admission of fallibility is a thousand- 
fold better than petulant chagrin. He is an 
unarmed campaigner who has not always in 



306 The Occasional Address 

expectation the adverse possibilities of the 
contest. The greatest of modern captains was 
always thinking not of what he should do when 
victorious, but of what way to escape the con- 
sequences of defeat. 

Another precept, which is worth more than 
at first it seems to be worth, is regarding fair- 
Faimess in ness toward the opposite party and 
discussion. riyal candidates> The maxim " all 

is fair in war " is an easy one to apppropriate 
in political contests, and seemingly justifiable. 
Ethics are not supposed to enter into such war- 
fare. Strong convictions must be inspired, and 
strong methods are requisite. The average 
political gathering is not likely to have the 
keenest sense of honorable methods. It ap- 
preciates success more than any means of win- 
ning it. Assertion, backed by the similitude 
of logic, but better by a pointed anecdote at 
the expense of the other side, is as good an 
argument as any for a crowd which is running 
with the speaker. But if the multitude is a 
mixed one, and there are voters to be concili- 
ated and won from the opposition, the wise 
speaker will make a show at least of treating 



The Political Speech s°7 

their preconceptions with fairness. He will in 
this way secure a more favorable hearing when 
he comes to the statement of his own side. In 
the great political campaign debate between 
Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, 
the fairness of the latter toward his opponent 
did as much for his ultimate success as what 
he said for his own side. Frank generosity 
disarms prejudice and paves the way for an 
honest presentation of unpalatable considera- 
tions. Still, there is abundant opportunity for 
discretion here. There is no call for a ruinous 
generosity. Political wisdom suggests a be- 
nevolence toward the opposing side in minor 
matters, or in undeniable facts, rather than in 
those radical differences upon which the greater 
questions turn. 

Akin to this is the sharp practice of making 
the most of an adversary's weak points, and 
thus diverting attention from one's Making most 
own. It is a ruse of the bar and the of diversions - 
battle-field, and has been known to do yeoman 
service on the political platform. If its legit- 
imate result can be immediately secured it will 
have its own reward. But if there be time for 



308 The Occasional Address 

the public press to arraign such methods, their 
efficiency will be neutralized by the exposure 
which they are sure to receive. In these days 
the speaker has it all his own way for an hour. 
Then he is brought before the people in their 
cooler moments and finds their judgment pro- 
nounced in advance by an interpreting press. 
With varying interpretation, to be sure, but it 
is not all in any one direction, as may have 
been the case in the wigwam of his tribe. 
Therefore it is of great importance that a 
speaker have a long outlook toward the merci- 
less judgment which is sure to follow any wide 
departure from what is fair toward the opposi- 
tion or from what is true of his own cause. 

But it is entirely in accord with political 

ethics to say that a speaker on the political 

platform will do all that he can for 

Support 

of speaker's his own side. This is expected of 

own cause. 

him. Up to the verge of the line 
which separates truth from falsehood, person- 
alities from slander, exaggeration from mis- 
representation, he will carry his assertions, and 
most men will think his method legitimate. It 
will be credited to his belief in his cause and 



The Political Speech 3°9 

his devotion to it. A judicial spirit might be 
taken for indifference and half-heartedness : a 
concessive temper for trimming and temporiz- 
ing. It is the last place to show any other 
than a positive and zealous committal of mind 
and heart to the doctrines and purposes of the 
party. Its way is, without doubt, the one 
way; its triumph the only hope of the com- 
munity, of the state, of society, of the age, 
and of humanity. 

To carry such strong personal convictions 
there will be need of strong language. This 
can be very strong. It will be full 

Clearness and 

of those potent nouns, verbs, and strength of 

diction. 

idiomatic phrases which the people 
understand without a dictionary, the Saxon 
words they use when they are excited. Ex- 
pletives which are not profane will sometimes 
creep in, but circumlocutions never, unless for 
ridicule. Characterization will be with a broad 
and free stroke, like the charcoal sketch of a 
master, something that the dullest can see and 
comprehend, as they might comprehend a car- 
icature of Nast's. Clear division, like that of 
the oration, will be doubly valuable here when 



3io The Occasional Address 

the audience is mixed, untrained, and unre- 
strained. Points must be made, barbed points 
that will fix themselves in undisciplined minds. 
Therefore words will be sharp and short, not 
hard to recall. Current and new phrases are 
admissible here more than elsewhere. 

One advantage the political speaker has over 

all other orators, — he must speak without a 

sign of manuscript or not speak at 

Spontaneity. 

all. Nothing could be more incon- 
gruous than a written stump speech. The very 
respectability of form is against it. The spirit 
of earnest address is hampered by such a token 
of premeditation. There should be sufficient 
forethought, all the more that there are no 
notes to rely upon ; but the appearance should 
be of spontaneous speech because the head and 
heart are supposed to be full. When they are 
overflowing with zeal, exact, correct, and pre- 
cise terms are not looked for. Syntax can be 
violated more safely than earnestness ; rhythm 
and movement than sincerity. The one idea 
will so possess the speaker that he is sublimely 
unconscious of slips of tongue, and people will 
forgive his mistakes by reason of his singleness 



The Political Speech 311 

of purpose. He will not add to his verbal 
errors by going back to correct them. The 
correction is worse than the blunder; for it 
calls everybody's attention to what some 
would not have noticed and others would have 
soon forgotten. 

Here, too, the value of extemporary speech 
will be evident in the opportunity it gives to 
meet emergencies as they arise. Not Meeting 
merely the interrupting interroga- emer & encies - 
tories that have been mentioned, but changes 
in the temper of a crowd always fickle and 
centrifugal, ready to fly off in unexpected 
directions on the slightest provocation. The 
speaker who can ride out their shifting gales is 
fortunate ; he who can direct the whirlwind is 
more fortunate still. The throng must not get 
away with the speaker ; it is worse if they make 
head against him. But it is one of the crown- 
ing achievements of the orator to turn back a 
threatening herd, as Phillips turned them in 
Faneuil Hall and Curtis in Chicago. To do 
this is the prerogative of the man whose wits 
are about him, and who has left his notes at 
home. He must also have stores of knowledge 



3*2 The Occasional Address 

upon which he can draw, and be able to think 
upon his feet. He will need to break out new 
paths at short notice, to fight foes in ambush, 
to be armed at all points, and always to be in 
command of himself. Otherwise he cannot 
rule the noise of the people and the madness 
of a multitude. 

There are many places in which the speaker's 
prowess is tested, many trying situations, some 
The political which are more trying than they 
convention. seem> as j n arguing a case before a 
committee or a board where the inspiration to 
eloquence is small. In a political convention, 
on the other hand, there are the incitements 
of enthusiasm or even the goads of a hissing 
opposition; but all in all, there is no greater 
opportunity for signal success or ignominious 
failure. It will be the one or the other that 
will receive attention, since mediocrity gets 
little notice. Certainly no situation calls for 
all the faculties of the speaking man to be kept 
alert and in extreme tension more than when 
making the platform speech. None requires 
more general preparation, not only for what is 
to be said, but also for what may be demanded 



The Political Speech 313 

by the other side. Comprehensive study of all 
sides of the questions at issue, shrewdness to 
anticipate points of attack, and a thorough 
acquaintance with lines of defence are the be- 
ginnings of success. But the ability to turn 
the tide of battle and divert the headlong rush 
of sentiment surging hither and thither, ready 
to precipitate itself into any ditch dug for the 
unwary ; to control such a rout as is guided by 
the herdsman when he rounds up ramping 
cattle, is the privilege and the power of only 
here and there a man in a century. It has 
been done three or four times in the nine- 
teenth : there are likely to be other opportuni- 
ties in the twentieth. The madness of the 
people has not been permanently cured ; nor, 
on the other hand, have they as yet shown 
themselves independent of the sway exercised 
by masters of assemblies. 

The literature of this branch of the public 
address is not comparatively abundant be- 
cause it is necessarily ephemeral. 

Literature of 

Burke's speech to the electors of campaign 

. . , oratory. 

Bristol is as far back as one need 

turn for a first-class production, and the doc- 



314 The Occasional Address 

trine there promulgated of the independence 
of the representative is a wholesome one for all 
political candidates to study. After this 
speech others may be sought among the works 
of statesmen, but often with little success ; for 
it is the kind of effort to which they have been 
least willing to give immortality. Office has 
often been more creditable than the means 
necessary to obtain it. Furthermore the issues 
discussed have been of little importance, and 
the speeches themselves local and temporary in 
character, designed to win ballots and nothing 
more. Newspapers keep in the darkness and 
dust of their mouldy files the remains of much 
eloquence that once thrilled enthusiastic 
crowds. It was not unlike what may be heard 
in any exciting presidential campaign, a quad- 
rennial flood which covers the land, and men 
predict a deluge of disaster and the extinction 
of the nation in consequence. When the 
waters subside they always find in some corner 
of the sky a bow of promise. After all, discus- 
sion is better than silence, and the information 
of the people than their ignorance. Therefore 
it is well that the platform should share with 



The Political Speech 3 J 5 

the press the burden of political education, 
never too thorough among a people politically 
inclined. But it is to the journalism of the 
country that we shall always be indebted for 
preserving the literature of the political plat- 
form. The making of it is the safety-valve of 
the Republic. 

There may also be found in dark corners of 
libraries, public and private, copies of speeches 
that have been mailed from Wash- speeches for 
ington regardless of expense — be- tiono/the 
cause there was none. Many times constituenc y- 
these are copies of speeches that have actually 
been delivered. In this case they must be 
reckoned among the literature of the campaign. 
Collectors of the curious here and there will 
have what has been worth keeping; but of it all 
it is no disparagement to say that its chief value 
consists in the delivery of it to an audience. 

As confirming this opinion was the proclama- 
tion by the leaders of the campaign of 1896 
that it was to be one of political edu- The cam . 
cation. Its managers on both sides paign of l896 ' 
professed, to place their dependence for success 
upon a clear setting forth before the people of 



316 The Occasional Address 

the questions at issue, both by speakers and 
by printed matter, exclusive of the customary 
support of party journals. More than any re- 
cent campaign, it was one of instruction by 
oral address. It was a method demanded by a 
desperate emergency. 

In a volume mentioned upon the title-page 
of this book the writer ventured the statement 
that one of the chief factors in the settlement 
of political problems in the future will be the 
power of instructive, reasonable, and persuasive 
speech, and that the distance is not far to a re- 
stored oratory, and a revived eloquence which 
shall be needed again as they have been em- 
ployed in the past and that men will turn to 
hear what their leaders will have to tell them, 
— " and leadership may depend largely upon 
the manner of the telling." Some months 
after, the last remark was illustrated in a politi- 
cal convention held in Chicago. Viewed sim- 
ply as an oratorical triumph, it may be asserted 
that notwithstanding all that has been said 
about it by those who were not present or by 
those who were — after their enthusiasm had 
cooled — the fact still remains that when a sub- 



The Political Speech 3 X 7 

ject, an occasion, and what antiquity called " a 
speaking man " conspire to a single purpose, 
the multitude must follow their leading. To 
be sure, the atmosphere may be charged with 
contagious and responsive sentiment and emo- 
tion, and the wayward currents of opinion may 
be setting in the same general direction, but it 
is a magnetic centre to which they converge, 
itself giving off and receiving back an effluence 
of power to the admiration and amazement of 
all beholders. There are plenty of reasons 
why such a concurrence of forces and favorable 
conditions may not often occur. Great occa- 
sions and crises cannot be arranged for like a 
pyrotechnic display. Auroral lights are not 
provided to order by the weather bureau. But 
when all elements happen to be in true con- 
junction, and the unexpected word is spoken, 
men recognize and obey a power greater than 
the multitude because multiplied by its num- 
bers. They may afterwards laugh at their 
submission, as they ridicule their timidity 
after the tempest has blown over, but the fact 
remains and has become a part of their per- 
sonal experience. The history of oratory has 



318 The Occasional Address 

preserved the record of such episodes, warrant- 
ing the supposition that there will be more of 
them in the future. If so, there may be a re- 
vival of that form of instruction and persuasion 
which has counted for the most in stirring 
times. It is the same as at Athens in the fifth 
century before our era, and at Rome in the 
first, in crusading Europe in the middle ages, 
in France in the seventeenth century, in Eng- 
land in the eighteenth, and in America in the 
nineteenth. Eloquence will have its depres- 
sions and may be silent for years and genera- 
tions ; but when a cause becomes so vital that 
men can no longer keep silence the prophets 
will appear from unlooked for quarters, and the 
nation will listen to their message with more 
immediate and profound interest than to any 
other manner of revelation. 



VI. 



AFTER-DINNER REMARKS. 



THIS form of the occasional address is by no 
means modern in its origin. Readers of 
Homer will recall Argive feasts after which 
there was much speaking, with a definite pur- 
pose in view. Indeed it is some- The ant iq U ity 
times difficult to determine then as ofthecustom - 
now whether the eating or the speaking was 
the principal feature of the occasion. The 
order, however, has always remained the same, 
and to reverse it would probably be fatal to 
the total result, however much the speeches 
might be improved. For with nature's abhor- 
rence of two such important processes as assim- 
ilation of food and production of thought being 
carried on simultaneously a compromise is likely 
to follow. Either the dinner or the speech will 
suffer, and sometimes both. In any case " re- 
319 



320 The Occasional Address 

marks " are not made under the most favorable 
conditions, nor is dining the unalloyed pleasure 
it might be were there no speech to be made. 
Of course this does not apply to the rambling 
talk into which a person may be unexpectedly 
betrayed at the last moment under the gener- 
ous influence of meats and drinks; for this 
after-dinner speaking is very comprehensive, 
and may include the depth of foolishness and 
the height of wisdom. What is contemplated 
here, is the speech for a purpose, which the 
guest knows he is to be called upon to make, 
and of which he has had timely warning. As 
such it is not the easiest oratorical task. To 
note some of the difficulties and dangers of it 
will serve to make plain certain needs of the 
speaker. 

To the inexperienced there is likely to arise 

the dangerous hope that the occasion itself will 

furnish material for remarks ; or that 

The occasion 

furnishing other speakers will suggest trains of 

material. . 

thought which can be seized upon as 
the flow of soul becomes full and strong. 
Even an adroit restatement of the common- 
places of the hour is not impossible, and is far 



After-Dinner Remarks 321 

better than the appearance of labor in prepara- 
tion. Such suggestions should be received as 
the whisperings of laziness and procrastination. 
The commonplaces of the occasion belong to 
the presiding officer as his privilege and duty 
in his introductory remarks; and as for the 
suggestions of others, they usually pursue the 
exhaustive method rather than the suggestive, 
and make the most of what unused ideas re- 
main to them. Add to this the difficulty with 
which cogitations, worth uttering, are pursued 
amidst entertaining speech and laughter and 
comment right and left, to say nothing of to- 
bacco smoke and the effervescence of cham- 
pagne — if it is that sort of a dinner. If it is a 
cold lunch there are other impediments to 
mental activity and creative thought. 

He is not, therefore, a wise man who comes 
to the feast with no oil for his lamp. He will 
find that others have brought no Prevision and 
more than they will be likely to need forethou & ht - 
for themselves as the hours wear on toward 
midnight or morning. For what is the real 
nature of such an occasion but an intellectual 
tourney disguised, which the uninitiated are 



122 The Occasional Address 

apt to take for a post-prandial conversation 
entirely informal. Suppose it were ; how few 
can shine in these days which have forgotten 
Coleridge and Wilson and the famous monol- 
ogists of their time. Their art of monopoliz- 
ing table-talk is a lost one, and this is a still 
higher art in which some of those ancient 
worthies would make a sorry figure if called 
upon to stand up and address the crowd after 
a dozen other wits had improved their chance. 
The invited " orator of the day " who has 
the occasion all to himself has an unharvested 
Preparation ^ e ^ before him, with no one to 
and gleaning. point out what he has left untouched. 

But the late speaker at a dinner follows a dozen 
others, a very gleaner, while before the com- 
pany he must be a competitor for the prize of 
their attention and applause. Such an occa- 
sion comes nearer than any other to the literary 
contests of Olympia. Not with the seriousness 
and stateliness of its poetic, dramatic, and 
oratorical competitions ; but in the swift suc- 
cession of speakers, in the interest to be kept 
up, in the added difficulty of improvisation, in 
reference and retort there is often a tourna- 



After-Dinner Remarks 323 

ment worthy the best intellects in the best 
ages. Therefore, if any difficulties and embar- 
rassments can be forestalled by judicious pre- 
vision of what is likely to be said, and of what 
should be said, these ought to be anticipated. 
Above all a wide and comprehensive survey of 
the entire range of topics pertinent to the occa- 
sion will save a speaker from the feeling that 
he has been defrauded, which is likely to creep 
over him as he hears one after another of his 
points taken up by previous speakers. A large 
shrinkage must be allowed for in the fullest 
preparation, unless one has an early position 
or an assigned topic. In this case there will 
be still less excuse for its indifferent treatment. 
Here arises another danger, that of over- 
preparation. It is one of the real difficulties 
of this kind of address that even 

Weighty 

weighty subjects must be treated in subjects in 

. ., lighter vein. 

lighter vein. Not every one can 
do this successfully. To draw the line between 
lightness and levity is as hard as to distinguish 
between sobriety and dulness. Accordingly, 
many a man who can write a treatise cannot 
discuss his favorite theme to the edification of 



324 The Occasional Address 

a company indisposed to mental exertion. All 
the more necessity will there be for such prep- 
aration as will comport with the spirit of the 
occasion, and the intellectual condition of his 
hearers. The speaker is to remember that it is 
not a meeting of scientists, philologists, bank- 
ers, or politicians in their professional capacity. 
Whatever he says is to be made interesting 
and easy of apprehension. Neither his subject 
nor himself is to be a bore. 

This suggests two directions which will bear 

stating: first, the prime qualification of an 

after-dinner speaker is that he be 

Enter- r 

tainment entertaining. The form of his 

essential. 

speech may be instructive, remi- 
niscent, or hortatory, but in spirit it must be 
interesting. The audience is proverbially 
good-natured, for the best of reasons. It is also 
patient — at first ; but it has a right to be enter- 
tained and even amused, or else to hoard its 
fleeting moments for the use of those who are 
able to interest it. There are several ways in 
which a speaker can be interesting, but perhaps 
the chief of these is by a judicious use of the 
good story. It is not every speaker who has 



After-Dinner Remarks 3 2 5 

an anecdote to relate, nor every other who can 
relate one well. A plentifully stocked mem- 
ory and effective narration commonly go to- 
gether. When these are combined with a 
third faculty — the sense of fitness — anecdote 
becomes a prominent element in the speech 
that brings down the house. Indeed the house 
is sometimes kept at the roaring point by a 
succession of narratives, the application of 
which it is not always easy to discover. The 
table has been listening to " Iagoo, marvellous 
story-teller," and has mistaken a string of 
mirth-provoking accounts for a good speech. 
Therein the speaker also has made a mistake ; 
but the audience is forgiving in this direction 
because it has been amused. But when anec- 
dotes are pat, not too numerous, and illustrat- 
ing sound sense, two principal constituents of 
an after-dinner speech are present. 

There is one other — brevity. Not every 
speaker can be wise or witty, but all can prac- 
tise that virtue which is the soul of Brevity 
wit. Hearers will excuse dulness, desirable, 
and even erudition, in speeches if they are 
brief. But speakers are the worst of time- 



3 2 6 The Occasional Address 

keepers. Between their fear lest they betray 
poverty of thought, and anxiety lest they shall 
not finish what they have to say, the much- 
enduring company suffers many things from 
prolix talkers. It is not an unknown occur- 
rence that such an one has been vociferously 
applauded to drown him and " down " him; 
when, alas, he mistook the purpose of the 
cheers and stamping, and thought he must 
continue to be entertaining. The only remedy 
is the five- or ten-minute rule of the remorse- 
less gavel. Most speakers are better pleased 
to be knocked down than to descend with 
grace, or to collapse before they think their 
time has expired. 

A good post-prandial speech is therefore no 
trifling matter, nor a matter to be trifled with. 
Requisites of T- ne general rather than the minute 
preparation. p re p ara tion, the extensive rather 
than the intensive or exhaustive treatment, 
the abundant rather than the profound re- 
sources and material, and the art to omit and 
supply upon need, and above all to illuminate 
and adorn with appropriate and illustrative an- 
ecdote, are the chief essentials to success. The 



After-Dinner Remarks 327 

reward of it will be evident and speedily forth- 
coming. Never is an audience more uncritical 
and responsive. Applause is free and unre- 
strained, and if it do not throw the speaker 
off his centre, is helpful and encouraging. He 
will, nevertheless, need all his discipline as an 
extemporaneous speaker to carry himself cred- 
itably, treating his topic in proper proportion, 
in manner appropriate to the occasion, and with 
reasonable brevity. After he has done his best 
he will say with Lowell, returning from a feast 
(and as Goethe said before him), " I made the 
best speech of my life to-night — in the carriage 
as I was coming home, saying over to myself 
the things I ought to have said, but forgot to 
say, to the company." 

If the reader wishes to see what a place the 
after-dinner speech occupies in literature he 
may begin with the Iliad and Odys- The literature 
sey; but he will find an abundance of the d ^ n e e r ; 
of it in the works of our American speech, 
orators. Their lighter " Remarks " and "Ad- 
dresses " are interspersed with weightier ut- 
terances in volume after volume. Brief and 
ephemeral as many of them were, these lesser . 



328 The Occasional Address 

productions have been deemed worthy of a 
place among the best orations of Webster, 
Everett, Choate, Winthrop, Phillips, Sumner, 
and Curtis; while among the publications of 
scholars and statesmen still living are similar 
proofs of versatility and talent. These occupy 
a place in the literature of the occasional ad- 
dress that can be filled by no other form of it, 
and have their own value in illustrating the his- 
tory that was making in the times of their de- 
livery. To it they give a living reality as of 
things occurring daily, as viewed by contem- 
poraries, and as commented upon in the free- 
dom of good fellowship. 

The custom is an old one, but likely to sur- 
vive ; and the educated man therefore cannot 
afford to neglect any means which will assist 
him in this form of occasional address. Many 
a noble enterprise has been started at the fes- 
Vaiue of such ti ye board by men who knew when 

opportunities. the j r f e Jl ows were ; n a mo0( J to take 

large and benevolent views of affairs, and many 
a just tribute has there been paid to worth, and 
many a good impulse given to honorable living 
and earnest endeavor. In some respects it 



After-Dinner Remarks 3 2 9 

presents a most favorable opportunity for a 
speaker effectually to address his fellow-men. 
There is much to gain in silver speech by one 
who is equal to the occasion. There are also 
compensations in golden silence for those who, 
uncalled and undisturbed, are permitted to lis- 
ten to the wisdom and the wit of after-dinner 
speakers. 

A backward glance over the general subject 
of the Occasional Address in its three divisions 
of Structure, Qualities, and Forms, reveals 
much that is common to it and the kindred 
topics of judicial, deliberative, and homiletic 
discourse. Much, too, is revealed of still 
other forms of composition, thoughts, and 
diction ; their ordering, and the qualities which 
make them most effective are the properties 
of every kind of writing, to be distributed ac- 
cording to its class and purpose. But more 
than any other, demonstrative oratory deals 
with the understandings of all men as related 
to their sensibilities, their affections, and their 
emotions. The men who have lived lives 
worth recounting, the events in which human 



33° The Occasional Address 

effort has culminated, the present truth which 
needs enforcing, the studies of the scholar, 
the science of government, the interchange of 
kindly feeling, and the promptings of generous 
sentiment, all these in their manifold phases 
belong to the sphere of demonstrative speech. 
It shows forth the worth of virtues, and the 
significance of occurrences, which otherwise 
might be passed by unheeded. It records and 
publishes chapters in the history which is fluid 
or growing solid ; and it connects present 
events with past causes and future conse- 
quences. It is the historian, the instructor, 
and the prophet of all the people irrespective 
of caste, creed, or party. Free to all who will 
listen, it is itself the child of freedom, possible 
only where speech is untrammelled and criti- 
cism given without fear and received without 
resentment. 

Nor can the speaker hide behind the screen 
of impersonality and give out his utterances 
from mysterious retreats. Like the legislators 
of old who proposed laws with halters about 
their necks, the occasional orator carries into 
open day his personal responsibility for what 



After-Dinner Remarks 331 

he says. His judges are the people, who will 
not be bribed by flattery as they will not mob 
him for telling them their faults. If he stand 
by the truth they will in turn stand by him, 
and his power will be redoubled by their alle- 
giance. Therefore his opportunity and his 
reward are great; the one too rare to be 
neglected, the other too abundant to be de- 
spised. It is worth the study and labor of 
years to do what some have accomplished in 
this field. Their names are landmarks in the 
literature and history of eloquence, an honor 
to their own age and an inspiration to the 
future. 

THE END 




INDEX 



Action in Oratory, 174 

Adams, J., 74, 147 

Adams and Jefferson, eulogies on, 266 

Adams, Samuel, 64-70 

Adaptation and fitness, 166 

Adversary, treatment of, 306 

Advocate, 60 ; to be equal to his cause, 26 

After-dinner remarks, 319 ; literature of, 327 ; ancient cus- 
tom, 328 ; embarrassments of, 321 

Allston, 98 

Allusions, literary, 272 

Ambiguity, 128 

Ambrose of Milan, 210 

Ames, Fisher, 228 

Analysis and Synthesis, 12 

Anaximenes, 78 

Anecdote, 324 

Anglo-Saxon literature, its purpose, 14 ; words, 130, 149 ; 
chronicle, no 

Anthony, H. B., memorial addresses, 98 

Anti-climax, 105 

Anxiety, speaker's, 323 

Appeal, example of, 234 

Applause, 326 

Argument, reasonableness in, 115 

Argumentative forms, ill 

Aristophanes, 193 

Aristotle, 78, 79, 81, 82, 142 ; his classification of oratory, 78 

Arrangement, principles of, 50 ; euphonious, 162 

Artemisia, 207 

Attention of hearers, 59, 173 

333 



334 Index 



Audience, 94 ; attitude of, toward speaker, 196; contagion of 
temper in, 197 ; criticism by, 132 ; its interest in subject, 
290 ; its opposition and prejudice, 40 ; subserviency to, 
172 ; sympathy of with speaker, 69, 165 ; variance with, 
15 ; weariness of, 104, 112 

Audubon, 238 

B 

Bacon, Sir Francis, 79, 93 

Bancroft, George, 96, 238 

Beecher, H. W., 41, 196 

Bernard, alluded to, 100 

Blaine, 100, 238 

Blair, Hugh, 80 

Boethius, 223 

Books, value to writer, 129 

Booth, 238 

Bossuet, 213 

Bourdalone, 211 

Brackenridge, 70 

Breadth of treatment, 187 

Brevity in speeches, 325 

Brown University 263 

Bryant, 238 

Bunker Hill Oration, Webster's, 269 

Bunyan, 131 

Burke, 71, 72, 216 

Burr, A., 75 



Campaign, political, of 1896, 315 

Campbell, George, 81, 82 

Carlyle, 98 

Cato's definition of an orator, 118 

Channing, 98, 222 

Character, idealization of, natural, 244 

Character-portrayal, 96 

Characterization, 309 ; by Everett, 227 

Chaucer, 139 

Choate, 180, 236, 278 

Chrysippus, 112 

Cicero, 79 

Clay, Henry, 64, 180 



Index 335 



Cleveland, Grover, 263 

Climax, 105, 144, 153 

Coleridge, 322 

Colleges, American, 286 

Commemorative Address, 245 ; beginnings of, 246 ; literature 

of, 246 ; survey of its literature, 249 
Commemorative Oratory, 252 ; Hebrew, 253 ; Greek, 257 ; 

Roman, 259 ; Mediaeval, 259 ; French and English, 260 ; 

American, 262 ; heathen deities in, 256 
Commencement Orations, 285 ; literature of, 285 ; represent 

college training, 287, 300 ; composition of, 298 ; subjects 

of, 288 
Comparative faculty, 113, 134 ; to be cultivated, 136 ; dangers 

of, 138 
Comparison, 134 ; example of ; 233 
Concentration, 128 
Conciliation, 60, 275 
Conclusion, example of, 234 
Condensation, 292 
Condorcet, 212 

Congruity of style and subject, 167 
Conscience in audience, 119 
Convention, political, 312 
Conviction, 114, 116 
Convictions, courage of, 195 
Cooper, J. F., 238 
Corax, 46 
Cotton, John, 219 

Criticism, historical, 206 ; petty ; 134 ; popular, 132, 302 
Crusades against wrong, 21 
Curtis, G. W., 35, 41, 100, no, 238, 249, 311 ; as lecturer, 

283 



D'Alembert, 213 

Davis, Jefferson, 19 

Davis, Henry Winter, 19 

Definition, example of, 231 

Delivery, 155-297 

Demonstrative Oratory 114, 186, 227 329 ; themes in, 85 

Demosthenes, 175, 196, 207, 234 

Description, 109 

Diction, 92, 161 ; clear, 130 ; strong, 133, 147, 309 ; suited to 

theme, 171 
Dignity of discourse, 172 



33 6 Index 



Discord, 163, 168 

Discourse, organized thought, 44 

Diversions, 307 

Division, 192 

Divisions recapitulated, 235 

Douglass, 65, 307 

Drama, Greek, French, and English, 175 

Dramatic, element in discourse, 174 ; spirit, 176 

Dwight, 222 



Education as a subject, 35 

Edwards, Jonathan, 222 

Elegance, its relative value, 159 

Ellsworth, O., 71 

Eloquence, a definition of, 17 ; Webster's definition of, 268 

Elucidation, 192 

Emergencies, meeting, 311 

Emerson, 137, 238, 263, 283 

Emphasis, 144, 292 ; example of, 231 

Energy, 142 ; pervasive, 143 

Entertainment, speech for, 324 

Epidictic oratory, 9, 88, 206, 257 

Epigrammatic style, 295 

Epitaphian orations, 207, 258 

Erasmus, 214 

Estimate of ability, 21, 23, 24 

Ethical quality in discourse, 200 

Eulogies, on magistrates, 223 ; on ministers, 218 ; on ministers' 
wives, 223 

Eulogists, enumerated, 222 ; American, 222 ; and their sub- 
jects, 236, 237, 238 

Eulogy, 70, no, 205 ; Primeval form of address, 205 ; 
Defined by Mme. de Genlis, 213 ; by Voltaire, 213 ; 
by Fenelon, 213 ; of folly, etc., 214 ; British, 215 ; 
French Academy's Moges, 212; in reign of Louis XIV., 
211 ; American, 218 ; character the subject of, 56 ; central 
point in character, 241 ; candor in, 241 ; distortion in, 241 ; 
treatment of defects, 243 ; principles of construction in, 
240 ; permanence as a form of address, 239 

Eumenius, 210 

Euphony, 162 

Evarts, 238 

Events commemorated, 261 



Index 337 



Everett, Edward, 36, 99, no, 180, 227 ; oration upon Wash- 
ington, 227 ; character as an orator, 275 ; his style, 270 
Exposition, 84, 88, 109 ; and interpretation, 284 
Expository Address, 274 
Expression, 187 
Extemporaneous speech, 93 
Extemporization, 90 



Fairness in discussion, 306 

Figurative language, 139 

Figures of speech, 113 ; for clearness, 134 ; for emphasis, 151 ; 

for illustration, 140 ; impressive, 152 ; caution in use of, 

141 ; Biblical use of, 140 
Finding power, 194 
Flattery of audience, 61 
Flechier, 211 
Fontenelle, 212 
Force, personal, 145 
Forethought, 321 
Fourth of July orations, 263 
Fox, 234 
Fronto's praise of dust, smoke, 214 



Garfield, 64, 238 

Generalization, 152 

Genung, classification of oratory, 83 

Godwin, Parke, 238 

Goethe, 327 

Gorgias, 207 

Grattan, 216 

H 

Hancock, John, 263 

Harvard College, 18, 74 

Hayne, 23 

Hearer, the average, 171 

Hearers, hostility of, 60 ; good will of, 62 ; prejudice of, 63 

See also " Audience " 
Henry, Patrick, 114 
Hilliard, G. S., 97 



33% Index 



Historical parallels, 112 

Holmes, Abiel, 238 

Holmes, O. W. t 238 

Homeric literature, 247 ; speeches, 248 

Hugo, Victor, 98 

I 

Illustration, 136 

Imitation, 178 

Incongruities apparent to hearers, 169 

Indifference, 65 

Interpretation and reminiscence, 252 

Introduction, conciliatory, 64 ; provisional, 58 ; final, 59 

Invention, 90 ; among ancients, 90 

Isocrates, 78, 99, 207, 257 

J 

Jackson, A., 96 
Jefferson, 74, 147 

See " Adams and Jefferson " 
Judgment, 135 

K 

Kossuth, 238 



Lafayette, 266 

Lamar, 238 

Lamb, Chas., quoted, 182 

Lecture, the lyceum, 279 ; the popular, 279 

Lectures, 67 

Lincoln, A., 65, 69, 99, no, 151, 180, 191, 236, 307 

Logical figures, in, 112, ; limitations in use of, 114 ; forms, 

the simpler, 114 
Lovejoy, Owen, 41 
Lowell, J. R., 238, 327 
Luther, Martin, 150 
Lysias, 207 



Index 339 



Macaulay, T. B., 136 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 216 

Mamertinus, 210 

Massillon, 211 

Material, ordering of, 49 

Mather, Cotton, 31, 219, 220 

Mather, Increase, 31, 221 

Mather, Samuel, 220 

Mausolus, 207 

Memory, 174 

Milton, 131 

Mind, the undisciplined, 50 

Moderation in statement, 157 

Monologue, 322 

Motives, 117 ; low and high, 118, 119 

Motley, 238 

Movement, cumulative, 104 

N 

Napoleon, 151 

Narration, 109 ; example of, 229 

Natural bent, 181 

Naturalness, 177 

Nature and art in composition, 184 

Nazarius, 210 



Objects of speaking, 17 

Occasion, 228 ; and material, 320 

Occasional Address, defined, 3 ; value of, 5 ; compared with 
other forms, 6 ; feature in national life, 3 ; to be culti- 
vated, 7 ; literature of, in different nations, 10 ; its quali- 
ties, 12 ; its study, 13 

Occasions enumerated, 3 ; for addresses, iv 

Olympic festival, 322 

Orator, Cato's definition of, 118 ; the, as a discoverer, 88 ; 
and painter, 88 

Orator's responsibility, opportunity, and reward, 331 

Oratory, classification of, 78, 80, 82 ; deliberative, judicial, 
demonstrative, 78 ; forensic, political, commemorative, 17 



340 Index 



Oratory, demonstrative, defined, 9 ; qualities of, 94 ; range 
of topics, 84 ; themes of, 84 ; scope of, 10 

Oratory, determinate, 9 ; special and professional, 7 ; themes 
of, personal and general, 248 ; natural, 181 



Pacatus, 210 

Palfrey, J. G., 263 

Panegyric, 257 ; Greek, 206, 208 ; Roman, 206, 208 

Panegyrists of imperialism, 208 

Parliament, 175 

Peabody, George, 237 

Pendleton, George H., 19 

Perceptive faculty, 89 

Pericles, no, 193 

Peroration, brevity in, 105 ; importance of, 101 ; epitome of 

discourse, 102 
Personal and ethical qualities, 184 
Personal magnetism, 198 ; power, 197 
Personality, 179 
Perspicuity, 121, 125, 189, 193 ; devices for obtaining, 129 ; 

depends upon clear thinking, 127 ; and precision, 126 
Persuasion ending in action, 120 
Phillips, Wendell, 18, 24, 41, no, 178, 196, 280, 311 
Plan, value of, 44 ; as in building, 47 ; prevents digression, 

53 ; secures proportion, 55 ; after-thoughts in, 56 ; of 

skilled writer, 57 
Plato, 206 
Pliny the Elder, 78 
Pliny the Younger, 208, 266 
Points in discourse, 154, 192, 291 
Political campaign, speeches in, 301 ; students in, 301 ; 

knowledge of the people, 303 ; oratory, literature of, 

313 ; portrayal of character, 96 ; example of, 227 
Preachers, 60, 68 
Precision, 189 

Preparation for speaking, 320, 326 ; over-preparation, 326 
Press, The, 314 
Princeton University, 263 
Pronunciation, importance of correct, 123 
Proof, 115 

Propositions, enumeration of, 75 
Protagoras, 78 



Index 341 



Purpose in discourse, 14, 116 ; to be clear to speaker, 15 ; 
speaker's, measured by his ability, 21 



Qualities of discourse, general, 186 

Qualities of Occasional Address, Part II., 184 

Quintilian, 75, 78, 79, 82, 125 



Recapitulation, 106 ; example of, 235 ; of " Occasional Ad- 
dress," 329 
Relations, faculty of , 134 
Reserves of power, 155 
Restraint, 155 
Romance derivatives. 149 



Schurz, Carl, 19 

Sears, Barnas, 237, 262 

Self-respect of speaker, 61, 63 

Seward, W. H., 19, 238 

Sheridan, 71 

Simplicity, 173 

Sophistries, 115 

Speaker's own cause, 308 

Speech, a ten-minute. 56 ; plain, 148 

Spontaneity, 310 

Statement of subject, 73 ; breadth of, 133 ; exact, impossi- 
ble, 133 

Story, Judge, 98, 262 

Strength of treatment, 188 

Studies, liberal, of an orator, 183 

Stump-speaking, 310 

Subject, germ of entire discourse, 29 ; importance of, 67 ; 
unsuitableness to occasion, 170 ; statement of, 29. 73 

Subject, of discourse, choice of, 27 ; division of, 36, 37 ; brev- 
ity of statement, 38 ; 

Subjects, offensive, 170 ; sensational, 33 ; weighty in lighter 
vein, 323 



34 2 Index 

Suggestion, 157 

Sumner, Charles, 18, 24, 36, 98, 178, 238, 280 

Syllogism, n 1 

Sympathy, 198 



Technical language, 294 ; terms, 126, 127 ; words, 133 

Tennyson, 216 

Terms, specific, 150 

Theme, derivation of, 34 ; development of, 34 ; in demon- 
strative oratory, 84 ; importance of, 72 ; reservation of, 
42 ; statement of, 40 

Themes, Commencement, 288 ; ethical and political, 86 ; new 
and old, 290 ; scholastic, 289 ; worn out, 288 

Thesis for Commencement, 294 

Thomas, French orator, 213 

Thought, fitness of, 92 ; preceding expression, 92 ; primary 
part of composition, 92 

Thoughts, association of, 52 ; first, 39 ; arrangement of, 122 ; 
definiteness of, 129 ; haphazard succession of, 49 ; skill 
in arranging, 45 

Thucydides, 207 

Titles, long, short, and quaint, 30 

Trajan, 209 

Truths, new, 94 

Tone of discourse, 160 

Toombs, Robert, 19 

Topics of discourse, 27 



U 

Undertaking too much in discourse, 25 
Unity a quality of discourse, 52 



Variety, in discourse, 145 ; and breadth of treatment, 187 

Vicq D'Azyr, 213 

Vocal culture, 297 

Voltaire's definition of eulogy, 213 



Index 343 

w 



Ware, William, 222 

Washington, George, 99, no, 151, 225 ; criticism of, an- 
swered by Everett, 232 

Webster, Daniel, 18, 23, 69, 146, 178, 180, 228, 236 ; Ply- 
mouth oration of, 264 



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